THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 


MABEL  R.  GILLIS 


Meets  every  Sabbath  Afternoon,  ut  ]J  o'clock. 

5  LIBRA.!?. -y    K.ECa-TJOL.^^TIOKrS. 

K   1.— Punctuality  at  the  opening  of  School  entitles  each 

Scholar  to  one  Book. 

2.— Kvery  Book  drawn  must  he  returned  in  one  week. 
8.— Every   Book  to  be  neatly  and  carefully   preserved 
from  injury. 


SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 


A  BOOK  FOR  LITTLE  PEOPLE. 


By    E.    F.    BURR,    D. 


AUTHOR  OF  "  EOOE  C(BHTM."  ETC. 


N 


EW 


NELSON    &    PHILLIPS. 

CINCINNATI:   HITCHCOCK   &  WAXDEN. 

SUNDAYrSCHOOL   DEPARTMENT. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1874,  by 

NELSON  &  PHILLIPS, 
in  the  Oflice  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


OOI^TE^TS. 


PACK 
L  THE  SOUL 5 

II.  THE  ANGELS 34 

HI.  Gk>D 56 

IV.  THE  EMPIRE  OP  GOD 79 

V.  THE  LAWS  OP  GOD 103 

VI.  THE  WORD  OP  GOD.  . ,  .124 


SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS, 


I. 

THE   SOUL. 

IF  I  should  ask  you  to  tell  me  the  names 
of  all  the  things  you  have  ever  seen, 
you  would  think  it  very  strange,  and 
perhaps  would  say,  "  Why,  sir,  I  could  not 
begin  to  do  such  a  thing.  There  are 
houses,  flowers,  trees,  cattle,  birds,  men, 
lightning,  fires,  clouds,  rivers,  hills,  fruit, 
grain,  sun,  moon,  stars — and  ten  thousand 
things  besides.  Why,  sir,  I  could  not  be- 
gin to  tell  all  the  things  I  have  seen,  they 
are  so  many." 

You  are  right.  Neither  you  nor  the 
greatest  man  can  tell  even  all  the  wonder- 
ful things,  above,  beneath,  around  you,  that 
can  be  seen  in  a  single  day.  How  beauti- 
ful many  of  these  things  are !  Did  you 


6  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

never  take  up  a  little  flower,  or  a  little 
shell,  or  a  little  butterfly,  and  hold  it  close 
to  your  eyes  and  see  what  soft,  rich  colors, 
and  what  bright,  wavy,  graceful  lines  there 
were  all  about  it  ?  How  grand  many  of 
these  things  are — the  great  hills  with  their 
tops  in  the  clouds ;  the  great  rivers,  bearing 
up  the  heavy  vessels  as  if  they  were  so 
many  feathers,  and  sweeping  them  off  into 
the  broad  sea ;  the  great  world  itself,  which, 
as  you  have  been  told  at  school,  is  thou- 
sands of  miles  around  and  holds  hundreds 
of  millions  of  people ;  above  all,  the  glo- 
rious sun  in  the  sky,  a  million  of  times 
larger  than  this  world,  and  so  bright  that 
the  strongest  eyes  dare  not  look  it  full  in 
the  face !  How  awful  are  some  of  the 
things  you  now  and  then  see — for  just 
think  of  the  lightning  as  it  shoots  its  forked 
tongue  toward  you ;  the  storm  that,  black 
as  night,  comes  down  on  the  woods,  and 
makes  them  toss  and  break  in  the  roaring 
wind  !  And  then  what  wise  and  beautiful 
contrivances  there  are  in  almost  every  thing 


The  Soul.  7 

you  see — in  the  bird  that  darts  so  swiftly 
through  the  air ;  in  the  fish  that  cuts  the 
water  so  easily ;  in  the  squirrel  that  runs 
so  nimbly  from  stone  to  stone  and  from 
branch  to  branch ;  in  your  own  bodies, 
with  hands  to  catch,  and  feet  to  run,  and 
eyes  to  see,  and  ears  to  hear,  and  tongue 
to  talk,  and  a  hundred  other  things  to  do 
as  many  other  things  with  ! 

Now  I  want  you  to  attend  well  to  what 
I  am  about  to  say  to  you.  I  am  about  to 
say  a  very  important  thing,  one  which  many 
older  persons  than  you  need  to  hear.  It  is 
this.  These  things  which  you  see  are  not 
the  only  real  things ;  nor  are  they  even  the 
most  beautiful,  grand,  important,  and 
nicely  made  of  real  things.  I  know  of 
something  that  is  greatly  better  in  all  these 
respects.  People  sometimes  call  it  spirit. 
No  eyes  such  as  we  have  ever  saw  it :  no 
such  eyes  ever  can  see  it.  It  is  every- where 
about  you,  and  yet,  however  sharp  you 
may  look,  you  will  never  be  able  to  catch 
the  first  glimpse  of  it.  Your  eyes  are 


8  SUNDAY  AFTEKNOONS. 

bright  and  young ;  whatever  eyes  can  do 
no  doubt  they  can  do ;  but  this  I  know,  t 
that  they  never  yet  saw  that  wonderful 
thing  called  spirit,  and  never  will  see  it. 
You  can  see  what  it  does  very  often — you 
can  heai'  and  feel  what  it  does  almost  every 
moment ;  but,  as  to  the  thing  itself,  you 
cannot  ever  set  eyes  or  hands  on  it.  And 
yet  it  is  a  real  thing — as  real  as  any  rock 
or  tree — a  very  beautiful,  and  grand,  and 
important  thing,  too,  and  full  of  marks  of 
glorious  wisdom — much  more  so  than  such 
things  as  flowers,  mountains,  storms,  suns. 
You  cannot  think  how  great  and  impor- 
tant a  thing  this  same  spirit  is,  and  how 
important  it  is  that  you  should  know  about 
it,  though  you  cannot  see  it.  It  is  because 
it  is  so  important  that  I  will  now  try  to 
tell  you  something  about  it  as  well  as  I 
can. 

There  are  different  sorts  of  spirit,  just 
as  there  are  different  sorts  among  the  things 
that  you  see.  There  is  the  black  iron,  the 
white  silver,  and  the  yellow  gold ;  there  is 


The  Soul.  9 

the  common  stone  of  the  field  and  street, 
the  white,  smooth  marble  which  you  see  in 
the  church-yard,  and  the  dazzling  diamond 
set  in  the  crown  of  a  king ;  there  is  the 
dull  clod  that  the  plow  turns  over,  the 
flesh  of  your  cheek,  soft  and  red  with 
youth,  and  the  quick,  bright  lightning  that 
plays  and  darts  so  fiercely  about  the  edge 
of  the  thunder-cloud  :  these  all  are  things 
that  can  be  seen,  only  different  sorts  of 
them.  Just  so  there  are  very  different 
sorts  of  spirit,  and  especially  three  sorts 
which  we  happen  to  know  very  well.  One 
is  called  soul,  another  is  called  angd,  and 
still  another  is  called  God.  I  will  not 
speak  to  you  about  all  of  these  just  now : 
only  about  the  first,  the  soul.  You  have 
heard  this  word  before  many  a  time ;  but 
not  so  many,  I  dare  say,  that  you  cannot 
hear  it  many  more  times  without  hearing 
it  too  much. 

Somewhere  within  your  body — I  will 
not  undertake  to  say  where — is  a  some- 
thing which  you  cannot  see  any  more  than 


10  SUNDAY  .  AFTERNOONS. 

if  it  were  at  the  other  side  of  the  world ; 
which  has  no  weight,  nor  color,  nor  size, 
nor  shape  that  we  know  of,  but  which 
is  very,  very  active,  and  can  think  and  feel 
and  choose.  This  is  what  looks  out  at 
your  eyes,  and  pictures  itself  in  your  whole 
face,  and  speaks  in  the  words  you  use. 
This  is  what  sets  your  hands  and  feet  in 
motion,  makes  you  able  to  play  or  work  or 
study,  makes  you  able  to  see  and  hear  and 
smell  and  taste.  Without  the  soul  within 
you,  you  would  be  like  a  dead  person — 
stiff,  silent,  doing  nothing,  knowing  noth- 
ing. When  you  look  at  a  watch  you  see 
the  hands  moving  over  its  white  face,  and 
the  faint  tick  never  fails  to  reach  your  ears 
at  every  second ;  but  what  makes  the  watch 
go  and  beat  the  time  is  not  any  thing  that 
you  see ;  it  is  something  inside  that  keeps 
silently  pulling  on  the  wheels ;  it  is  the 
spring  all  covered  up  out  of  sight.  And 
what  puts  all  the  motion  and  sound  into 
that  body  of  yours  is  not  any  thing  that 
you  see,  but  that  unseen  thing  within 


The  Soul.  11 

which  thinks,  feels,  and  chooses,  and  which 
men  call  the  soul. 

I  say  that  you  do  not  see  your  soul. 
No  wonder,  for  it  is  within  you.  But  you 
might  even  take  a  human  body  all  to 
pieces,  and  watch  very  carefully  while 
doing  it,  and  yet  you  would  not  find  the 
soul  anywhere.  Your  eyes  are  not  sharp 
enough  to  see  such  things,  just  as  they  are 
not  sharp  enough  to  see  the  air  in  this 
room  and  a  great  many  things  besides. 
No,  you  can  neither  see  nor  handle  the 
soul ;  but  still  we  can  know  perfectly  well 
that  every  body  has  a  soul  living  in  it  just 
as  a  man  does  in  a  house.  Suppose  you 
should  stand  before  a  house  and  see  smoke 
coming  out  of  the  chimney ;  see  windows 
and  doors  and  blinds  open  and  shut ;  see 
curtains  let  down  and  raised ;  see  lights 
shining  through  the  windows,*  and  moving 
about  from  room  to  room,  and  sometimes 
making  shadows,  as  of  persons,  across  the 
panes  ;  hear  music  coming  from  it  in  many 
well-known  tunes — you  would  have  no 


12  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

doubt  somebody  lived  in  the  house,  though 
you  never  happened  to  see  any  one  plainly 
showing  himself  at  the  window  or  coming 
out  at  the  door.  Even  if  you  should  find 
the  door  locked,  and,  on  breaking  it  open, 
should  find  nobody  in  any  of  the  rooms, 
you  would  still  be  sure  that -somebody  has 
been  living  there  and  has  either  hid  or 
slipped  out  at  the  back  door  while  you 
were  getting  in — especially  if  you  should 
find  all  sorts  of  furniture  about,  and  even 
fires  burning,  table  set.  food  all  ready  to 
be  eaten,  and  should  hear  sounds  as  of 
feet  going  away.  You  would  say,  "  Sure 
enough  some  one  has  been  living  here,  but 
for  some  reason  does  not  wish  to  be  seen." 
So  we  know  by  a  thousand  signs  that 
something  lives  in  our  bodies,  very  differ- 
ent from  them,  that  thinks,  feels,  chooses, 
remembers,  hopes,  fears,  loves,  hates,  en- 
joys, suffers,  is  bad  or  good.  It  speaks  in 
the  face,  shines  in  the  eyes,  talks  with  the 
tongue,  works  with  the  hands,  walks  with 
the  feet,  does  right  or  wrong  with  the 


The  Soul.  13 

whole  body :  and  when  learned  people 
look  into  the  body  they  find  it  all  fitted 
up  as  splendidly  for  a  soul  to  live  in  as 
ever  a  palace  was  for  a  king. 

Now  there  are  some  things  that  I  wish 
to  tell  you  about  this  soul  that  lives  in  the 
body  just  as  if  it  were  a  house.  We  do 
not  know  all  about  it  although  it  is  so 
near  us,  and  we  carry  it  about  with  us  all 
the  while.  For  example,  we  do  not  know 
what  it  is  made  of,  what  shape  it  has,  how 
it  moves  the  hands  and  feet  and  other 
parts  of  the  body,  how  it  sees  with  the 
eyes  and  hears  with  the  ears,  how  it  is 
fastened  to  the  body,  or  exactly  in  what 
part  of  the  body  it  lives.  A  great  many 
such  things  we  do  not  know.  But  many 
other  things  we  do  know,  and  I  will  now 
tell  you  some  of  them. 

Souls  are  very  many — as  many  at  least 
as  there  are  living  human  bodies  in  the 
world.  Each  of  us  has  a  soul  in  his  body. 
Every  little  child,  however  small  and 
wherever  living,  has  a  soul,  as  well  as 


14  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

every  grown-up  person.  All  the  black 
people,  such  as  live  in  Africa  ;  all  the  red 
people,  such  as  once  lived  here  and  were 
called  Indians ;  all  the  olive  people,  such 
as  live  in  some  parts  of  Asia ;  these  all 
have  souls  as  well  as  white  people.  So 
have  all  poor  and  homely  and  ignorant  and 
bad  persons,  as  well  as  the  rich  and  fair 
and  wise  and  good — all  the  poor  heathen 
away  at  the  ends  of  the  earth,  worshiping 
idols,  as  well  as  such  people  as  live  here 
and  fill  our  churches  on  Sundays.  Do  not 
forget  this ;  for  some  persons  act  as  if  they 
thought  that  only  a  few  have  souls — a  few 
rich  or  great  or  wise  people.  And  most 
men  seem  to  forget  for  a  large  part  of  the 
time  that  they  themselves  and  their  chil- 
dren, to  say  nothing  about  the  heathen, 
have  souls  to  be  taken  care  of.  You  your- 
self are  in  danger  of  living  just  as  if  you 
have  no  soul.  So  I  charge  you  to  remem- 
ber that  there  is  a  soul  within  every 
human  body. 

These  souls  are   not  all  exactly  alike. 


The  Soul  15 

Very  far  from  it.  They  differ  as  much 
from  each  other  as  do  the  bodies  in  which 
they  live.  One  is  large,  another  small. 
One  is  strong,  another  weak.  One  is  swift, 
another  slow.  Some  are  bright  and  strong 
and  swift  for  some  things,  others  for  other 
things.  One  seems  made  to  fill  great 
places  and  do  great  things,  another  seems 
made  for  a  small  place  and  work.  Indeed, 
souls  differ  as  much  as  do  houses  and 
trees ;  and  you  know  that  scarcely  any  two 
of  these  are  exactly  alike.  We  could  not 
bring  all  our  souls  to  be  exactly  alike  if 
we  should  try.  Some  seem  to  try,  but 
they  never  succeed.  And  it  is  not  best 
that  they  should.  We  need  to  have  souls 
differ  from  each  other  so  that  they  may  fill 
different  places  and  do  different  sorts  of 
work.  So  they  are  made  very  unlike  as  to 
what  they  are  able  to  do,  and  as  to  what 
they  like  to  do.  Every  teacher  or  father 
has  to  remember  this  very  often.  And 
now  you  understand  a  part  of  the  reason 
why  ministers  and  Sunday-school  teachers 


16  SDTSTDAY 


try  to  talk  to  children  and  others  in  so 
many  different  ways.  It  is  because  souls 
differ  as  much  among  themselves  as  do  the 
leaves  on  the  trees  when  the  first  frosts 
have  touched  them.  What  different  colors, 
as  well  as  shapes  and  sizes  and  ways  of 
hanging  !  No  two  are  alike. 

All  souls  began  only  a  little  while  ago. 
If  I  should  ask  you  how  old  you  are,  you 
would  answer,  six,  ten,  fifteen  years,  as 
the  case  may  be.  This  tells  how  old 
your  body  is,  and  it  also  tells  how  old 
your  soul  is.  It  is  a  new  thing.  A  very 
short  time  ago  nobody  knew  any  thing 
about  it  —  it  did  not  know  any  thing  about 
itself.  There  was  no  thinking,  no  feeling, 
no  choosing,  no  any  thing  that  belongs  to 
it  now.  But  on  a  sudden  it  began  to  be. 
Almost  as  it  were  yesterday,  your  soul 
awoke  in  its  fresh,  new  body  —  remember- 
ing nothing,  and  looking  out  through  the 
windows  of  your  new  eyes  on  a  world  that 
seemed  quite  new  and  strange.  It  felt  it- 
self just  beginning  to  live.  And  it  was. 


The  Soul.  17 

Some  souls  in  the  world  are  older  than 
yours,  but  none  of  them  go  back  very  far. 
A  hundred  years  ago  scarcely  a  single  one 
of  them  was  to  be  found.  I  am  speaking 
now  of  souls  that  are  living  at  the  present 
time  in  the  millions  of  human  bodies  all 
over  the  world.  And,  for  my  part,  I  do 
not  believe  that  there  is  a  human  soul 
anywhere  that  is  much  more  than  six 
thousand  years  old.  Perhaps  this  seems 
a  long  time  to  you,  but  it  does  not  to  me. 
At  any  rate,  you  will  agree  with  me  that  it 
is  but  a  very  short  time  since  your  soul 
began. 

When  souls  begin  to  be,  every  thing 
about  them  is  very  weak  and  small.  You 
know  how  weak  the  body  of  the  little  babe 
is.  It  cannot  walk ;  it  cannot  hold  itself 
up ;  it  cannot  even  creep  at  the  very  first. 
Some  one  must  do  every  thing  for  it,  it  is 
so  helpless.  If  left  to  itself  it  would  die. 
Now  the  soul  of  this  babe  is  just  as  weak 
as  its  body.  It  knows  scarcely  any  thing, 
it  can  do  scarcely  any  thing.  And  when 


18  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

the  babe  becomes  the  little  child  that  runs 
about,  its  knowledge  and  strength  of  all 
sorts,  though  greater,  are  still  small.  They 
grow  somewhat  as  the  little  body  grows ; 
but  every  child  is  far  from  having  as  large 
and  strong  a  soul  as  a  full-grown  man. 
So  the  laws  put  him  under  the  care  of 
parents  and  others,  who  are  to  teach  him, 
and  show  him  what  he  must  do,  and  bring 
him  up.  God  also  does  the  same.  And, 
instead  of  being  headstrong  and  wise  in 
their  own  conceit,  he  bids  them  be  mod- 
est, respectful,  teachable,  and  obedient — as 
becomes  mere  beginners  in  life.  I  have 

O 

known  some  children  who  seemed  to  think 
themselves  as  wise  as  Solomon,  and  who 
scorned  to  be  taught  and  governed  by 
anybody.  And  they  were  very  unlovely 
and  very  foolish.  I  hope  you  will  not  be 
like  them.  On  the  contrary,  always  re- 
member that  all  young  souls  are  small  and 
weak. 

Souls   not  only  begin    very  small  and 
weak,  but,  what  is  a  great  deal  worse,  they 


The  Soul.  19 

begin  very  sinful.  You  know  all  too 
well  what  it  is  to  be  sinful — what  it  is  to 
do  wrong,  and  what  it  is  to  find  it  easier 
and  pleasanter  to  do  wrong  than  to  do 
right.  You  have  tried  it.  And  all  have 
tried  it  from  the  time  they  were  born. 
Among  all  the  millions  of  souls  that  have 
lived,  there  have  been  only  three  that  be- 
gan good,  and  only  one  soul  that  both  be- 
gan and  continued  good.  I  think  you  do 
not  need  to  have  me  tell  you  who  these 
were.  All  the  rest  have  been  bad  at  the 
beginning,  and  more  Or  less  bad  all  their 
days.  And,  to-day,  there  is  not  a  single 
soul  in  all  the  world  but  is  sinful  and 
always  has  been.  The  best  children  have 
evil  hearts.  You  do  a  great  many  wrong 
things,  and  always  have  done  them  ;  and 
it  is  because  your  soul  is  out  of  order,  in- 
clined to  do  evil  rather  than  good  ;  as  we 
say,  corrupt.  I  will  not  now  try  to  tell 
you  how  this  happened.  It  is  enough  for 
the  present  for  you  to  know  that  it  did 
happen,  and  that  nothing  worse  could  pos- 


20  SUNDAY  AFTEENOONS. 

sibly  have  befallen  us.  There  is  no  trouble 
like  a  bad  heart.  It  is  much  worse  than 
a  sickly  body.  People  are  sometimes  born 
with  this,  and  we  are  sorry  for  them.  But 
a  sickly,  corrupt,  sinful  soul — a  soul  that 
is  all  the  while  trying  to  be  wrong  and  do 
wrong,  as  water  tries  to  run  down  hill — is 
much  worse.  All  our  other  troubles  come 
from  this.  If  there  had  never  been  any 
sin  there  would  never  have  been  any  sor- 
row. All  the  pains  and  groans  and  tears 
we  know  of  came  from  this  root.  I  hope 
you  will  remember  this  also,  and  always 
think  it  a  very  sad  thing  to  have  a  sinful 
soul.  And  it  would  be  a  much  sadder 
thing  than  it  is  if  one  could  never  get  rid 
of  this  sinful  ness ;  but  this  every  one  can 
do — by  degrees.  By  degrees  he  can  get 
the  better  of  this  soul-sickness,  just  as  we 
sometimes  get  the  better  of  a  sickness  of 
the  body.  We  call  a  doctor,  we  take 
some  medicine,  we  get  a  good  nurse,  and 
after  a  while  we  begin  to  mend.  We  have 
less  and  less  pain,  our  eyes  grow  brighter, 


The  Soul.  21 

the  color  comes  back  to  our  cheeks,  our 
appetite  comes  slowly  back,  we  get  new 
strength  day  by  day,  at  last  we  walk 
abroad  and  go  about  our  business  as  usual. 
We  are  well. 

So  we  can  get  the  better  of  our  sins, 
and  indeed  of  almost  every  thing  about  the 
soul  that  we  do  not  like.  I  have  told  you 
how  weak  and  narrow  the  soul  is  at  first. 
But  souls  are  growing  things.  They  can 
be  made  to  grow  without  stopping  as  long 
as  we  live.  Your  body  must  stop  grow- 
ing after  a  little  while,  but  your  soul  can 
grow  and  grow  and  still  grow  without 
end.  It  will  never  get  so  large  and  strong 
that  it  cannot  be  larger  and  stronger.  It 

O  O 

can  always  be  wiser  and  better  and  more 
powerful  to-day  than  it  was  yesterday.  I 
do  not  say  that  it  will  certainly  improve 
in  this  way,  only  that  it  can  do  so.  There 
is  nothing  that  need  hinder.  If  it  should 
live  forever  it  could  grow  forever.  The 
trees  grow  about  so  tall  and  then  stop  : 
they  never  grow  any  more,  though  they 


22  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

live  a  thousand  years  afterward.  So  with 
every  sort  of  animals — each  has  a  certain 
small  size  which  it  never  goes  beyond, 
however  long  it  lives.  Nothing  can  keep 
such  things  growing.  No  care,  no  food,  no 
rest,  no  nursing.  They  will  even  become 
smaller  and  weaker  as  they  become  old  ; 
but  the  soul — every  soul,  your  soul — can 
be  so  managed  that  every  year  it  lives 
shall  see  it  brighter  and  fairer  and  stronger 
and  larger.  It  is  more  elastic  than  any 
thing  we  know  of.  It  is  like  a  certain 
tent  which  we  read  about  in  the  fables. 
It  could  always  be  stretched  a  little  more. 
To-day  it  covers  but  a  single  man.  By 
and  by  it  will  cover  his  whole  family. 
When  that  family  has  grown  into  a  tribe 
the  tent  will  still  be  found  capacious 
enough  to  cover  them  all.  And  when  the 
tribe  has  become  a  nation  and  fills  all 
Arabia  with  its  people,  all  its  millions 
will  be  sheltered  just  as  well  by  that  ever- 
growing silk  as  was  the  first  man  who 
used  it. 


The  Soul  23 

Now  I  come  to  something  that  makes 
this  fact  very  important.  This  is  that 
souls  will  have  an  opportunity  to  grow 
and  improve  forever.  They  have  but  a 
short  life  to  look  backward  to,  but  they 
have  a  very  long  life  to  look  forward  to. 
Just  think  of  it — this  young  soul  of  yours 
is  to  live  FOREVER,  FOREVER  !  It  has  no 
death  about  it.  You  could  not  kill  it  if 
you  would  ;  nor  could  the  strongest  man 
that  ever  breathed.  Sickness  cannot  touch 
it.  It  cannot  be  pierced,  or  crushed,  or 
burned,  or  drowned.  Battles  and  armies 
even,  with  their  sharp  swords  and  shotted 
cannon,  cannot  make  an  end  of  it  or  even 
hurt  it.  Hundreds  after  hundreds  of  years 
will  pass,  thousands  after  thousands,  mill- 
ions after  millions,  and  yet  not  one  wonder- 
ful soul  of  all  the  many  now  on  the  earth  will 
have  ceased  to  be,  or  even  have  grown  old. 
They  will  be  as  fresh  as  ever ;  nay,  fresher 
and  stronger  and  more  active  as  the  ages 
go  by  !  Is  it  not  a  great  thing  to  think 
of  that  these  souls  of  ours  that  so  lately 


24  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

began  will  go  on  living,  acting,  thinking, 
feeling,  growing  without  end  ? 

But  though  all  our  souls  will  live  for- 

*_? 

ever,   none   of  them  will  live  alwavs,  or 

/  «/      » 

even  a  great  while,  in  the  bodies  we  now 
have.  Sometimes  a  man's  house  is  burned 
and  then  he  moves  into  another.  Always 
it  grows  old  and  crazy,  and  at  last  falls 
down,  and  then  the  man  is  found  living 
in  another.  So  it  will  be  with  the  body- 
houses  which  our  souls  live  in.  Some  of 
them  will  go  to  pieces  before  their  time — 
burned  up  by  fevers,  torn  down  by  what 
people  call  accidents — perhaps  before  an- 
other year  has  gone.  Others  will  last 
several  years,  growing  larger,  stronger,  and 
firmer  at  first,  and  then  weaker  and  weaker, 
till  at  last  they  will  become  so  old  and 
tottering  that  our  souls  can  stay  in  them 
no  longer.  The  same  day  and  hour  that 
they  fall  the  souls  will  go  out  to  find 
somewhere  else  to  live. 

Where  will   they  go  ?     Go  somewhere 
they  must,  for  they  must  live  and  live  for- 


The  Soul,  25 

ever,  and  they  can  no  longer  live  in  their 
old  homes.  Where  will  they  go  ?  Now 
it  so  happens  that  I  can  answer  this  ques- 
tion just  as  well  as  if  I  had  already  seen 
souls  go  out  of  their  bodies  and  had  fol- 
lowed them.  I  have  been  told  by  One 
who  knows — One  that  it  were  wicked  and 
dreadful  not  to  believe — that  they  will  go 
to  one  of  two  places.  One  of  these  places 
is  that  "  Happy  Land  "  of  which  you  have 
so  often  suns;.  It  is  a  most  beautiful 

O 

place.  You  never  dreamed  of  any  thing 
half  so  beautiful.  Your  parents  and  oth- 
ers that  love  you  could  not  wish  any  thing 
better  for  you  than  that  you  might  go  at 
last  to  live  in  such  a  place.  A  man  once 
had  a  chance  to  look  at  it,  and  it  seemed  to 
him  as  though  it  were  all  covered  with 

O 

gold  and  precious  stones,  while  waters  clear 
as  crystal  sparkled,  and  green  fields  smiled, 
and  glorious  trees  waved  leaf  and  fniit 
over  beautiful  people  with  crowns  on  their 
heads  and  dresses  white  as  snow,  and  the 
strangest,  sweetest  music  fell  upon  his  ear. 


26  SUNDAY  AFTEENOONS. 

You  cannot  think  how  happy  and  how 
good  the  souls  are  that  get  to  this  won- 
derful place.  They  never  do  any  thing 
wrong.  They  know  nothing'about  trouble. 
To  live  is  a  wonderful  joy  :  they  could  not 
be  happier.  This  is  one  place  to  which 
our  souls  may  go  when  they  leave  the 
bodies  in  which  they  now  live.  Then  there 
is  another  place,  just  as  unlike  this  as  unlike 
can  be.  Instead  of  being  the  brightest 
and  loveliest  place  that  ever  was,  it  is  the 
darkest  and  most  frightful.  Instead  of 

o 

being  the  happiest  and  holiest,  it  is  the 
most  wretched  and  wicked.  There  is 
nothing  like  it  for  badness  among  all  bad 
places.  It  almost  makes  me  faint  to  speak 
about  it,  and  even  to  think  about  it.  You 
could  not  wish  anybody  any  thing  worse 
than  that  he  might  live  forever  in  such  a 
place.  O,  it  is  so  horrible  and  wicked  ! 

To  one  or  the  other  of  these  places  all 
our  souls  must  go  when  they  leave  their 
bodies.  But  very  likely  this  answer  will 
not  satisfy  you.  It  ought  not  to  satisfy 


The  Soul.  27 

you.  Of  course  you  want  to  know  to 
which  of  these  two  places — the  one  so  glo- 
rious and  the  other  so  dreadful — your 
soul  will  have  to  2:0  when  you  die.  Well, 

O  •/  ' 

I  can  answer  this  question  too,  and  you 
can  make  sure  it  will  be  a  right  answer, 
for  I  had  it  from  One  who  knows  all  about 
such  things,  and  who  would  not  deceive 
me  on  any  account.  You  ask  me  to  which 
of  those  two  places,  the  one  so  bright  and 
the  other  so  bad,  your  soul  will  go  when 
the  breath  leaves  your  body.  I  answer, 
that  depends  on  how  you  behave  while 
the  soul  is  still  in  your  body.  Remember 
that  all  depends  on  how  you  behave  ivhile 
the  soid  is  still  in  your  body.  If  you  be- 
have in  a  certain  way,  your  spirit  will 
surely  go  to  the  beautiful  land  and  stay 
there  forever.  It  is  what  you  are  doing 
now  that  will  settle  where  your  soul  will 
go.  If  you  will  be  sorry  for  the  wrong 
things  you  have  done,  and  will  pray  Jesus, 
the  Christian's  Saviour,  to  forgive  you,  and 
will  sincerely  set  yourself  to  love  and  serve 


28  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

him  as  long  as  you  live,  nothing  more 
will  be  needed.  Your  precious  soul  will 
go  up  straight  as  a  ray  of  light  to  Para- 
dise (for  that  ^is  one  of  the  names  of  the 
happy  country)  the  moment  you  breathe 
your  last.  But  if  you  do  not  choose  to 
do  this,  and  die  without  having  done  it — 
whether  that  be  to-morrow  or  fifty  years 
hence — the  consequence  will  be  that  your 
precious  soul  will  go  down  straight  to  that 
dark  country  of  which  I  have  told  you, 
never  more  to  come  back.  So  I  have  an- 
swered your  question. 

I  said  to  you  that  spirit  was  a  far  more 
wonderful  and  important  thing  than  any 
thing  you  can  see,  look  where  you  will. 
You  see  that  this  is  true  even  of  souls- 
true  of  your  soul.  There  is  nothing  that 
you  have  ever  seen,  or  that  others  ever 
saw,  half  so  grand,  so  wonderful,  so  pre- 
cious, as  is  that  unseen,  thinking  something 
that  hides  within  your  young  body.  It  is 
that  which  does  all  your  planning,  feeling 
and  choosing  for  you.  It  is  that  which 


The  Soul  29 

knows  and  remembers ;  which  loves  and 
hates,  fears  and  hopes ;  which  does  right 
and  wrong,  and  can  do  either  to  almost 
any  extent ;  which  feels  happiness  and 
misery,  and  can  feel  either  to  almost  any 
extent ;  which,  though  it  has  only  just  be- 
gun to  be,  will  be  forever  either  in  a  happy 
or  wretched  place,  according  as  it  shall 
choose  to  act  in  this  world.  Said  I  not 
truly  that  among  things  that  your  eyes 
can  see  there  is  nothing  that  for  a  moment 
can  be  thought  worth  so  much  as  this  ? 
Now  you  see  why  it  is  that  ministers 
preach  and  urge  so  Sabbath  after  Sabbath : 
it  is  because  the  people  have  souls,  pre- 
cious, undying,  sinful,  endangered  souls. 
Now  you  see  why  missionaries  are  sent 
to  distant  countries:  it  is  because  the 
heathen  living  there  have  souls — precious, 
undying,  sinful,  endangered  souls.  Now 
you  see  why  Sunday-schools  are  held,  and 
so  many  good  books  and  papers  made 
for  children.  It  is  because  they  all  have 
souls — precious,  undying,  endangered  souls. 


80  SUNDAY  AFTEENOONS. 

Now  you  see  why  it  is  that  your  good 
parents  and  other  friends  are  at  times  so 
concerned  about  you,  and  pray  for  you  so 
earnestly.  It  is  because  you  have  a  soul 
within  you — a  precious,  undying,  endan- 
gered soul.  Now  you  see  why  it  is  that  I 
am  writing  this  to  you.  Surely  I  should 
not  have  thought  of  writing  to  you  at  all, 
much  less  of  writing  to  you  about  spirits 
and  souls,  had  I  not  known  that  in  every 
child  lives  a  soul — precious,  wonderful, 
endless,  and  in  danger  of  being  endlessly 
miserable  and  sinful,  one  which  you  need 
to  think  of,  and  value,  and  care  for  more 
than  any  thing  else. 

And  now  what  I  want  of  you  is,  that 
you  take  care  of  this  soul  of  yours  that  is 
worth  so  much.  If  you  do  not  take  care 
of  it,  there  is  no  use  in  your  taking  care 
of  any  thing  else.  Suppose  a  house  is  on 
fire.  It  is  getting  very  hot,  and  all  about 
the  doors  and  the  windows  and  the  roof 
the  flames  are  bursting  out.  You  wonder 
why  the  little  boy  that  you  know  to  be  in 


The  Soul.  31 

the  house  does  not  come  out.  You  see 
him  running  by  the  windows  every  now 
and  then.  Why  does  he  not  come  out  ? 
Suppose  now  you  should  find  out  that  he 
was  looking  for  pins,  and  bits  of  ribbon, 
and  other  such  little  things — trying  to 
make  sure  of  as  many  of  them  as  he  could 
— what  would  you  think  of  him  ?  You 
would  say  he  was  a  very  foolish  boy, 
would  you  not  ?  What  good  will  his  pins 
and  ribbons  do  him  if  he  burns  up  ?  Let 
him  come  out — let  him  save  himself — and 
when  he  is  far  from  danger  he  can  go 
hunting  his  little  things  wherever  he 

O  O 

pleases.  So  I  say  to  you,  before  all  things 
save  your  souls.  This  is  the  thing  to  be 
done  before  play,  before  work,  before 
study,  before  every  thing.  If  you  should 
never  get  to  that  "  Happy  Land "  little- 
good  would  any  thing  do  you.  But  I  hope 
you  will  try  to  get  to  it.  And  if  you  try, 
and  try,  and  go  on  trying,  you  will  succeed. 
It  is  not  so  hard  a  thing  for  those  of  your 
age  to  be  sorry  for  their  sins  and  learn  to 


32  SUNDAY  AFTEENOONS. 

love  and  please  Christ  as  it  is  for  those 
who  are  older.  Will  you  not  do  it  ?  This 
will  save  that  soul  of  yours  that  is  so 
precious.  This  will  make  it  happy  forever 
in  that  beautiful  country  to  which  it  will 
go  as  soon  as  your  body  dies.  There  are 
many  bright  and  beautiful  children  there. 
No  words  can  tell  how  they  shine  and 
sing,  with  crowns  on  their  heads  and  harps 
in  their  hands  !  I  hope  to  see  them  some 
day ;  and  I  hope  also  to  see  you  among 
them,  as  bright  and  fair  and  happy  as  any. 
What  a  pity  if  you  should  miss  such  a 
glorious  place — you  whom  the  Saviour 
meant  when  he  said  so  kindly,  "  Suffer  little 
children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them 
not :  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  God." 

There  was  once  a  great  king  who  had 
many  beautiful  jewels  and  robes  and 
crowns  and  scepters,  and  he  thought  that 
they  should  not  always  lie  in  a  dark  room 
and  be  seen  by  scarcely  anybody ;  so  he 
had  them  all  brought  into  the  center  of  a 
great  building  and  placed  on  tables  right 


The  Soul.  33 

under  a  great  window  in  the  roof,  so  that 
all  his  people  and  people  from  other  lands 
might  come  and  see  them.  I  went  with 
many  others,  and  I  saw  well  all  those  beau- 
tiful and  costly  things.  But  I  noticed 
that  the  king  was  very  careful  of  his  treas- 
ures. He  plainly  did  not  mean  that  any 
of  them  should  be  stolen  or  harmed. 
There  was  a  strong  iron  railing  about 
them.  There  were  soldiers  to  watch  and 
keep  off  the  crowd.  We  could  not  touch 
any  thing.  We  could  only -see  the  splen- 
did show.  That  was  all  right.  I  did  not 
blame  the  king.  He  did  as  he  should 
have  done.  It  was  proper  that  his  care 
of  his  treasures  should  be  as  great  as  their 
great  value.  See  how  you  should  do !  A 
soul  is  a  far  richer  and  fairer  and  more 
costly  treasure  than  ever  shone  in  the 
robes  and  thrones  and  diadems  of  kings. 
You  should  take  great  care  of  it.  You 
should  fence  it  off  from  harm  as  with  sol- 
diers and  with  rails  of  iron,  for  if  you  should 
lose  it  the  loss  could  never  be  made  good. 


34  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 


II. 

THE   ANGELS. 

rflHERE  are  things  about  you  besides 
I  what  you  can  see — things  just  as  real 
as  trees  and  hills  and  stars.  I  mean 
spirits.  These  wonderful  beings  do  all  the 
thinking  and  wishing  and  willing,  all  the 
knowing  and  feeling,  all  the  loving  and 
hating,  all  the  hoping  and  fearing,  all  the 
right-doing  and  wrong-doing,  that  is  done 
any  where — and  yet  you  never  saw  them, 
and  never  can  see  them  with  such  eyes  as 
you  now  have. 

We  know  of  at  least  three  sorts  of  spir- 
its— souls,  angels,  and  God.  When  I  last 
met  you  I  spent  the  time  in  telling  about 
souls — those  beings  which,  hidden  in  our 
bodies,  do  all  our  thinking  and  wishing 
and  willing.  I  will  now  tell  you  about 
another  kind  of  spirits,  namely,  angels. 


The  Angels.  35 

A  long  time  ago  some  soldiers  were 
standing  before  a  cave.  They  had  been 
standing  there  all  night  to  keep  the  dead 
person  who  had  been  laid  in  it  from  being 
carried  away.  Just  as  morning  was  com- 
ing— it  was  Sunday  morning  that  was 
just  beginning  to  touch  the  hills  in  the 
east — they  suddenly  heard  a  great  noise 
and  the  ground  shook  under  their  feet,  and 
they  saw  something  like  a  man  come  down 
from  the  sky  close  to  them,  with  a  face 
bright  as  lightning  and  dress  white  as 
snow.  They  were  so  frightened,  soldiers 
as  they  were,  that  they  fainted  away.  But 
some  good  women  who  came  along  had 
better  courage,  and,  though  they  did  not 
dare  to  speak  to  so  bright  a  being,  they 
heard  what  he  said  to  them.  He  told 
them  what  they  c'ame  to  the  place  for; 
that  the  dead  body  they  expected  to  find 
was  alive  again  and  gone,  and  that  if  his 

friends  would  2:0  to  a  certain  mountain 

°  »v&-* 

they  should  see  him.     This  was  an  angel, 

or,  rather,  it  was  the  body  which  an  angel 


36  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

had  put  on.  As  nobody  has  ever  seen  a 
soul,  only  the  body  in  which  it  lives,  so 
nobody  has  ever  seen  angels,  only  the 
bodies  which  they  have  worn.  But,  for  all 
that,  we  know  a  good  deal  about  them, 
and  you  should  understand  that  they  are 
as  much  grander  and  brighter  than  our 
souls  as  that  lightning-body  which  the 
soldiers  saw  was  grander  and  brighter 
than  such  bodies  as  we  have. 

The  angels  are  much  more  knowing  than 
we  are.  They  are  a  great  deal  wiser  and 
stronger.  I  do  not  suppose  that  a  whole 
army  of  men  would  be  able  to  stand 
against  one  of  them.  Indeed,  I  happen  to 
know  that  one  night  a  single  angel  killed 
near  two  hundred  thousand  men ;  and  it 
was  done  so  quietly  and  easily  that  those 
sleeping  by  the  side  of  the  slain  knew 
nothing  of  it  till  the  morning  came.  Then 
they  awoke  and  found  the  cauap  filled  with 
dead.  The  angels  are  not  obliged  to  creep 
along  the  ground  as  we  do.  They  can  fly 
through  the  sky  swifter  than  any  bird, 


The  Angels.  37 

swifter  than  any  cannon-ball,  swifter  even 
than  the  swift  lightning.  We  cannot  get 
away  from  the  earth  if  we  try ;  the  most 
we  can  do  is  to  travel  a  little  on  it,  and 
now  and  then  go  up  a  few  hundred  feet  in 
a  balloon.  But  the  angels  can  fly  away  to 
the  sun  and  stars,  and  can  pass  from  star 
to  star  almost  as  quickly  as  you  can  think 
of  its  being  done.  If  you  want  to  go  into 
a  room  you  have  to  open  a  door  or  win- 
dow ;  if  you  want  to  go  to  the  other  side 
of  a  hill  you  have  to  go  over  or  around 
it ;  but  an  angel  can  pass  right  through 
walls  of  wood  or  stone  just  as  if  they  were 
so  much  air. 

Did  you  never  read  how  it  happened 
once  in  the  olden  time  ?  Some  friends  of 
Jesus  were  together  in  a  room,  and  the 
doors  and  windows  were  all  shut  and  fast- 
ened for  fear  of  the  Jews.  All  at  once 
Jesus  stood  in  the  midst  of  them.  How 
did  he  get  in  ?  No  door  had  opened,  nor 
window.  Could  you  have  looked  at  the 
bolts  and  bars  you  would  have  found  them 


38  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

quite  untouched.  Yet  there  he  was.  This 
shows  you  how  easily  angels  may  go  any- 
where among  us,  and  that  not  even  the 
thickest  prison  walls  can  shut  iu  or  out 
these  wonderful  spirits. 

The  angels  are  very  old.  Long  ago, 
when  the  world  was  young,  men  them- 
selves lived  almost  a  thousand  years — trees 
are  now  standing  which  must  have  stood 
more  than  three  times  that  great  time — 
and  O  how  long,  long  a  time  that  does 
seem  to  you,  stretching  out  and  out  as  if 
it  would  never  end  !  But  I  have  no  idea 
this  is  any  thing  like  as  long  as  the  angels 
have  lived.  I  cannot  say  exactly  how  old 
they  are,  but  I  think  that  the  youngest  of 
them  is  older  than  the  world — counting 
from  the  time  when  men  began  to  live  on 
it.  Six  thousand  years,  at  least,  have  the 
angels  lived — it  may  be  six  hundred  thou- 
sand— and,  what  is  even  more  wonderful, 
they  show  no  sign  of  being  old  at  all. 
They  are  just  as  fresh  and  strong  as  they 
ever  were.  They  were  never  so  wise,  so 


The  Angels.  39 

active,  so  mighty  as  they  are  at  this  mo- 
ment. They  are  actually  getting  stronger 
and  stronger  every  day,  instead  of  weaker 
and  weaker.  "  Is  this  so  ? "  you  say ; 
"  then  very  likely  they  will  never  die. 
This  growing;  stronger  for  six  thousand 

O  ~  O 

years  and  more  does  not  look  like  dying." 
You  are  right.  The  angels  will  live  always 
— life-time  after  life-time,  century  after  cen- 
tury, world-life  after  world-life,  I  had 
almost  said  eternity  after  eternity. 

Are  they  very  many,  these  angels  ?  O 
yes,  wonderfully  many  !  There  is  no 
counting  them,  they  are  so  many.  Not 
long  ago  we  were  every  day  hearing  of 
our  great  armies  at  Washington  and  else- 
where, all  ready  to  fight  for  and  against 
their  country.  Could  you  have  seen  them 
you  would  have  said,  "  What  a  sight  of 
people  ! "  And  then  almost  every  country 
in  Europe  has  armies  nearly  as  large  as 
we  once  had.  But  put  theirs  and  ours  to- 
gether and  they  would  not  equal  the 
mighty  armies  of  the  angels.  Sure  I  am 


40  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

they  are  many  times  more  than  all  the 
people  of  the  world.  They  are  like  the 
leaves  on  the  trees  or  the  sands  on  the 
sea-shore.  Did  you  never  hear  of  a  little 
boy  whom  his  father  took  one  day  to  the 
beach  to  gather  the  yellow  shells  and  play 
in  the  soft  white  sand — and  how  the  child 
took  up  a  handful  of  the  sand  and  tried 
to  count  all  the  little  grains — and  how 
he  soon  became  quite  discouraged  and 
gave  up  the  counting,  and  said,  "  Father, 
there  is  no  end  of  them  ! "  Suppose  he 
had  tried  to  count  all  the  sands  on  all  the 
sea-shores  of  the  world  !  As  well  might 
one  try  to  count  the  angels. 

There  are  two  sorts  of  angels,  living  in 
two  very  different  places.  One  sort  are 
perfectly  good  beings,  and  these  live  in 
Heaven,  that  beautiful  place  to  which 
good  men  go  when  they  die.  The  other 
sort  are  very  bad  beings,  and  these  live  in 
Hell,  that  dreadful  place  to  which  bad  men 
go  at  last.  Once  there  was  only  one  kind 
of  angels.  They  were  all  good  and  all 


The  Angels.  41 

lived  in  Heaven.  But  a  great  many  of 
them  in  some  way  became  wicked,  and 
after  that  they  were  cast  out  of  their  glo- 
rious home  and  were  obliged  to  go  and 
live  in  a  place  as  bad  as  themselves.  And 
that  is  very  bad.  Neither  bad  nor  good 
angels  are  bad  or  good  like  men.  The 
good  are  perfectly  good  and  the  bad  are 
well-nigh  perfectly  bad — the  one  sort  white 
as  the  whitest  snow,  the  others  black  as 
ink.  And  so  the  place  where  the  good 
angels  live  Is  the  brightest  and  most  beau- 
tiful that  ever  was  known,  and  the  place 
where  the  others  live  is  the  dreariest  and 
worst — nothing  like  it  anywhere.  But 
you  must  not  think  that  the  angels  stay  in 
these  places  all  the  while.  These  places 
are  only  their  homes.  They  go  and  come, 
just  as  men  do.  A  man  leaves  his  house 
and  is  gone  all  day — perhaps  a  good  many 
days — and  yet  people  call  it  his  home,  and 
say  that  is  where  he  lives.  Perhaps  he  goes 
a  great  distance — say  to  New  York  or 
Washington — perhaps  he  travels  about  on 


42  SUNDAY  AFTEKNOONS. 

the  other  side  of  the  ocean  for  a  whole 
year,  and  yet  people  say  this  is  his  home, 
this  is  where  he  lives.  In  the  same  way 
we  say  that  Heaven  is  the  home  of  the 
good  angels,  and  Hell  the  home  of  the 
bad,  though  none  of  them  stay  in  these 
homes  all  the  while,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
fly  about  and  go  away  to  very  distant 
places,  and  stay  away  for  a  long  time.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  both  kinds  of  them 
come  as  far  as  us,  and  make  a  long  tarry 
too — especially  the  bad  angels,  because  our 
world  is  so  much  pleasanter  than  theirs ; 
but  still  Heaven  is  the  place  to  which  the 
good  angels  belong,  and  Hell  is  the  place 
to  which  belong  the  bad  angels. 

The  angels  are  not  all  equally  great  and 
strong  and  wise  and  high.  It  is  with 
them  as  it  is  with  men.  Some  men  are 
strong,  and  some  are  very  weak.  Some 
know  much,  and  some  very  little.  Some 
are  beautiful,  and  some  are  very  homely. 
Some  are  private  soldiers,  some  captains, 
some  generals,  and  some  kings  and  empe- 


The  Angels.  43 

rors.  They  differ  among  themselves  as 
much  as  do  the  lakes  and  the  mountains. 
We  have  three  small  lakes  in  our  own 
small  town,  but  these  would  be  almost 
nothing  by  the  side  of  some  of  our  great 
western  lakes  stretching  through  hundreds 
of  miles.  We  have  our  large  hills,  and 
any  day  you  can  see  Mount  Archer  look- 
ing down  pleasantly  on  them,  as  a  father 
does  on  his  children  ;  but  what  would  the 
highest  of  these  be  by  the  side  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Alps,  their  heads 
white  with  everlasting  snows?  There  is 
just  as  much  difference  among  the  angels 
in  greatness  and  glory  as  there  is  among 
mountains  or  lakes  or  men.  Michael  is  a 
leader  and  prince  among  the  good  angels, 
Satan  is  the  leader  and  prince  among  the 
bad  angels.  And  there  was  a  time,  now 
long  ago,  when  these  two  great  spirits, 
each  with  an  army  of  lesser  spirits  under 
him,  fought  against  each  other  on  the 
plains  of  Heaven.  Satan  was  conquered, 
and  he  and  his  fell  from  Heaven  as  some 


44  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

of  you  have  seen  the  shooting-stars  fall  in 
November — only  much  more  thickly.  The 
sky  was  all  ablaze  with  them. 

In  this  country  people  often  change 
their  homes.  A  man  sells  out.  He  gets 
together  all  that  he  cares  about,  and  puts 
it  on  a  cart  or  in  a  boat,  and  goes  away 
into  another  place  to  live.  Still,  some  per- 
sons spend  their  whole  lives  in  one  place. 
The  houses  they  were  born  in  are  the 
houses  they  live  and  die  in.  In  England, 
the  country  from  which  our  fathers  came, 
it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  find  families 
which  have  been  living  on  the  same  lands 
and  in  the  same  dwellings  time  out  of 
mind — fathers,  grandfathers,  great-grand- 
fathers, and  away  back  for  hundreds  of 
years.  They  have  never  moved.  They 
are  proud  of  it,  and  hope  they  will  never 
have  any  other  homes  while  the  world 
stands.  It  is  not  very  likely  they  will 
have  their  wish,  this  is  such  a  changing 
world.  But  I  can  tell  you  of  some  beings 
who  never,  never  change  their  homes.  I 


The  Angels.  45 

mean  the  angels.  It  is  true  that  the  bad 
angels  made  a  change  some  thousands  of 
years  ago,  (and  a  very  dreadful  change  it 
was,)  but  there  will  be  no  more  changes. 
They  will  never  have  any  other  home  than 
the  dreary,  dreadful  one  they  have  had 
ever  since.  And  the  angels  who  kept 
their  goodness  will  never  have  any  other 
than  the  bright,  glorious  home  they  have 
always  had.  No,  from  this  time  forward 
none  of  these  spirits  will  ever  change  their 
home;  and  the  reason  is,  that  none  of 
them  will  ever  change  their  character. 
Bad  men  often  become  very  good  men — 
bad  children  often  become  very  good  chil- 
dren. Your  parents  and  teachers  are  hop- 
ing that  those  of  you  who  have  evil,  wicked 
hearts  will  one  day  come  to  have  good 
hearts  instead  of  the  bad.  Such  things 
are  happening  every  day,  especially  among 
the  children  who  go  to  the  Sunday-school. 
I  have  read  of  a  boy  so  bad  that  he  had 
to  be  sent  to  prison.  He  would  swear  and 
lie  and  steal,  and  when  a  kind  man  tried 


46  SUNDAY  AFTEKNOONB. 

to  help  him  and  teach  him  "better  things 
he  had  no  gratitude,  but  tried  to  steal  from 
that  best  friend.  But  that  friend  would 
not  give  up  the  poor  wicked  boy,  and 
after  awhile,  though  he  was  so  wicked  at 
first,  he  came  to  be  good.  People  hardly 
knew  him,  the  change  was  so  great.  It 
was  like 'the  change  sometimes  made  in 
ail  old  house.  The  carpenter  repairs,  takes 
away,  adds,  and  at  last  you  hardly  know 
the  building.  It  is  as  good  as  new.  On 
some  accounts  it  is  better  than  a  new 
house  could  be.  Such  was  the  change  in 
that  little  boy.  He  was  quite  another 
child,  much  to  the  wonder  of  all  who 
knew  him.  And  all  of  you  can  be 
changed  from  bad  to  good  in  the  same 
way.  But  such  a  thing  will  never  happen 
to  the  bad  angels.  They  will  always  stay 
bad,  and  the  good  angels  will  always  stay 
good.  A  change  there  will  be,  but  not 
of  this  kind.  The  good  angels  will  get 
stronger  and  stronger  in  their  goodness 
every  day,  while  the  bad  angels  will  be 


The  Angels.  47 

getting  worse  and  worse.  And  so  it  will 
be  that  none  of  them  will  ever  change 
their  home.  If  it  is  Heaven,  there  they 
will  stay  forever.  If  it  is  that  other  world, 
which  it  is  so  hard  to  name  because  it  is 
so  dreadful,  there  they  will  stay  forever. 
Each  in  the  place  suited  to  his  character. 

But  now,  perhaps,  some  of  you  are 
thinking  something  like  this,  "  What  have 
we  to  do  with  these  angels  ?  What  use 
in  our  hearing  so  much  about  them,  if  they 
do  not  live  in  this  world  ?  "  Let  me  tell 
you,  by  bringing  back  to  your  minds  what 
I  have  already  told  you.  The  two  worlds 
where  these  angels  live  are  the  places  to 
which  when  we  die  all  of  us  must  go. 
We  must  have,  by  and  by,  one  or  the 
other  sort  of  angels  for  company,  and 
have  them  for  company  always.  And 
there  is  another  thing  to  be  thought  of. 
Though  the  homes  of  the  angels  are  in 

o  o 

the  two  distant  worlds  I  have  spoken  of, 
yet  these  spirits  are  by  no  means  shut  up 
in  them,  but  spend  much  of  their  time  in 


48  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

this  world  right  among  us.  Good  angels 
and  bad — they  are  flying  about  us  all  the 
while.  They  are  in  the  fields  where  men 
are  at  work,  in  the  stores  where  men  buy 
and  sell,  in  the  boats  where  men  are  fish- 
ing, along  the  roads  where  men  are  walk- 
ing and  riding,  in  the  houses  where  fami- 
lies sit  together,  even  in  the  churches 
where  we  come  to  learn  and  do  holy 
things.  They  are  at  our  ears,  our  eyes, 
our  tongues,  our  hands,  our  hearts.  They 
put  good  and  bad  thoughts  into  our 
minds ;  they  try  to  get  us  to  do  this  and 
to  do  that ;  they  help  us  and  they  hinder 
us ;  they  fight  for  us  and  they  fight  against 
us.  The  holy  angels  try  to  do  us  all  the 
good  they  can — the  wicked  angels  try  to 
do  us  all  the  hurt  they  can.  N  The  good 
spirits  want  to  have  us  good  like  them- 
selves, and  do  all  they  can  to  make  us  so : 
the  bad  spirits  want  to  have  us  bad  like 
themselves,  and  do  all  they  can  to  make  us 
so.  And  they  do  not  forget  the  children, 
down  to  the  youngest.  I  suppose  they 


The  Angels.  49 

are  just  as  busy  at  the  ears  and  in  the 
heart  of  a  child  of  six  years  as  of  a  man 
of  sixty — the  good  pulling  him  upward, 
and  the  bad  pulling  him  downward.  None 
of  them  can  make  even  the  smallest  child 
do  as  they  please :  all  they  can  do  is  to 
tempt  him,  to  persuade  him.  If  he  has  a 
mind  to  refuse  them  he  can  do  so,  and  can 
drive  them  quite  away  from  him.  All  he 
has  to  do  is  to  say  NO  to  them,  and  to  keep 
saying  it,  and  they  will  leave  him,  whether 
they  are  good  angels  or  evil  ones.  And 
if  he  wants  to  keep  them  let  him  say  YES 
to  them,  and  Jceep  saying  it,  and  they  will 
stay  by  him  without  fail. 

So  you  must  never  think  yourselves 
alone.  When  your  fathers  and  mothers 
and  playmates  are  out  of  sight,  and  on 
looking  about  you  every-where,  above  and 
below  and  around,  not  a  sign  of  a  person 
can  be  seen,  then  remember  that  there  are 
many  beings  besides  those  which  the  eye 
can  see.  For  aught  you  can  know  the  air 
about  you  may  be  all  alive  with  people — 


50  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

people  whom  you  cannot  see,  but  who  can 
see  you  and  hear  you  and  know  all  you 
are  doing.  It  may  be  as  if  you  were  in  a 
city  when  you  seem  most  alone.  Do  not 
forget  that  the  world  is  full  of  angels,  bad 
and  good,  and  that  at  no  moment  can  you 
be  sure  that  thousands  of  them  are  not 
watching  every  thing  you  do. 

There  was  once  a  good  man  whom  a 
certain  king  wished  to  take  prisoner.  So 
this  king  sent  a  great  army  to  the  city 
where  the  man  was.  And  when  his  serv- 
ant looked  over  the  wall  and  saw  so  many 
waving  banners  and  glittering  spears  he 
was  much  afraid.  It  seemed  as  if  nothing 
could  save  him.  Then  his  master  asked 
God  to  open  his  eyes.  .  All  at  once,  in- 
stead of  finding  himself  all  alone  amid  a 
host  of  enemies,  he  saw  the  sky  about  him 
filled  with  protecting  angels.  Of  course 
he  was  not  afraid  any  more.  When  he 
thought  himself  all  alone  there  were  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  angels  about  him. 
So  it  may  be  with  you. 


The  Angels.  51 

Besides,  do  not  forget  that  there  is  a 
great  struggle  going  on  between  the  two 
kinds  of  angels  as  to  which  shall  have  you 
with  them.  'The  good  angels  want  you, 
and  the  bad  angels  want  vou.  The  one 

o  »/ 

want  to  have  you  wise  and  holy,  and  to 
take  you  up  with  them  to  the  beautiful 
world  where  they  most  delightfully  live ; 
the  others  want  to  make  you  foolish  and 
wicked,  and  to  take  you  down  with  them 
to  that  wicked  world  where  they  are  to 
live  forever  in  shame  and  punishment. 
And  so  they  are  struggling  and  pulling 
you  different  ways.  The  reason  you  do 
not  feel  it  is  that  the  pulling  is  on  your 
hearts  and  wills,  and  not  on  your  bodies. 
They  are  trying  to  persuade  you — trying 
about  as  hard  as  they  can — to  have  you 
be  their  friends  and  go  with  them  where 
they  will  always  live.  And  you  must 
think  what  you  will  do — must  choose  on 
which  side  you  will  be.  On  which  side 
shall  we  find  you  ? 

Would  you  not  rather  have  the  good 


52  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

angels  for  friends — those  bright,  beautiful 
beings  who  love  you  so  much  ?  To  tell 
the  truth  the  bad  angels  do  not  love  you 
at  all.  They  do  not  love  anybody.  All 
they  want  is  to  deceive  you,  and  hurt  you, 
and  make  you  wretched  forever.  They 
will  be  as  glad  as  such  wicked  beings  can 
be  to  make  you  as  wicked  as  themselves 
and  drag  you  down  to  that  black  world 
where  they  belong,  and  there  torment 
you  us  badly  as  can  be  without  end — 
they  hate  you  so  much.  But  the  good 
angels  love  you  as  much  as  the  bad  ones 
hate  you.  If  they  can  only  get  you  to  be 
on  their  side  and  to  do  as  they  do — to  be 
good  liko  themselves,  and  go  with  them  to 
their  golden  homes  in  the  sky — it  will 
make  them  very  happy. 

How  your  parents'  faces  will  sometimes 
shine  upon  you  with  love  and  joy  when  they 
see  you  doing  well,  and  feel  encouraged  to 
think  that  you  will  grow  up  to  be  a  comfort 
and  honor  to  them  !  You  would  at  such 
times  see  much  brighter  faces  than  those  of 


The  Angels.  53 

father  and  mother  shining  joyfully  upon 
you,  if  you  could  then  see  the  good  angels 
which  are  all  about  you.  The  sky  is  all 
in  a  glory  with  their  glad  and  thankful 
looks — they  love  you  so  much.4 

Now  which  angels  would  you  rather  live 
with  always  ?  What  place  would  you  rather 
live  in  always — the  brightest  and  fairest 
and  happiest  world  that  ever  was  known, 
or  the  blackest  and  wretchedest  ?  I  know 
what  you  would  say,  "We  want  to  go  to 
the  Happy  Land.  Every  one  of  us  wants 
to  find  his  home  at  last  with  those  bright 
angels,  brighter  than  summer  or  the  stars, 
and  who  are  as  loving  as  they  are  bright." 

But,  that  you  may  do  this,  you  must 
begin  now  to  be  like  the  good  angels. 
While  you  are  in  this  world  you  must 
learn  to  be  good  like  them — you  must 
learn  to  love  right-doing  and  to  hate 
wrong-doing,  just  as  they  do.  It  is  not 
easy  for  you  to  do  this.  You  have  evil 
hearts  which  help  the  bad  spirits  to  lead 
you  in  evil  ways.  But  you  can  get  the 


54  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

better  of  them  if  you  try  hard.  There  is 
a  great  Spirit,  far  greater  than  they, 
stronger  and  wiser  than  all  of  them  to- 
gether, who  will  help  you  against  them  if 
you  will  ask  Him.  There  is  a  great  Sav- 
iour who  lores  children  and  is  mightier 

O 

than  all  the  evil  angels  and  your  evil 
hearts  put  together,  and  who  will  save 
you  from  them  if  you  will  ask  him.  I 
hope  to  tell  you  more  about  these  great 
helpers  soon ;  but  you  know  something 
about  them  already,  and  when  you  feel  it 
hard  to  be  good  you  must  not  forget  to 
ask  them  to  help  you.  Ask  them  to  take 
away  your  evil  hearts.  Ask  them  to  take 
your  part  against  the  bad  angels  and  Sa- 
tan their  king.  In  this  way  you  will 
drive  those  evil  ones  away  from  you,  and 
the  bright,  good  angels  will  most  gladly 
take  you  for  their  own,  and  watch  over 
you  day  and  night,  and  help  you  to  be 
better  and  better;  and  by  and  by,  when 
you  die,  they  will  gather  about  you  in  a 
golden  cloud  and  carry  you  up  with  joy- 


The  Angels.  55 

ful  songs  to  your  home  in  heaven.  And 
such  a  home !  I  have  seen  many  places 
which  I  thought  very  beautiful.  I  have 
seen  pictures  of  places  which  I  thought 
more  beautiful  still,  and  I  can  shut  my 
eyes  and  build  up  in  my  thoughts  glorious 
palaces  and  cities  and  countries  far  richer 
and  fairer  than  I  ever  saw  in  the  finest 
paintings ;  but  even  these  thought-pictures, 
when  we  have  done  our  best  to  make  them 
lovely,  give  but  a  very  poor  idea  of  that 
glorious  land  to  which  you  and  I  may  go 
if  we  will. 


SUNDAY  AFTEK  NOONS. 


III. 

GOD. 

I   SHALL  speak  to  you  next  about  the 
greatest    Being  ever   known  —  about 
GOD.     This  is  one  of  his  names,  the 
name  we  most  hear ;  but    he   has  many 
other  names,  such  as  Lord,  Jehovah,  Crea- 
tor, Almighty. 

I  hope  you  will  remember  how  I  have 
come  to  speak  to  you  of  this  great  Being. 
I  first  told  you  of  two  sorts  of  things — 
the  things  that  can  be  seen,  and  the  things 
that  cannot  be  seen  with  such  eyes  as  we 
have.  People  sometimes  call  these  two 
sorts  of  things  matter  and  spirit.  I  did 
not  say  much  to  you  about  matter — about 
the  trees,  the  flowers,  the  fields,  the  rivers, 
the  mountains,  the  stars,  although  these 
are  very  curious  and  beautiful  things — be- 
cause they  are  not  so  beautiful  and  im- 


God.  57 

portant  as  the  other  sort  of  things.  So  I 
went  on  to  tell  you  about  spirits.  I  said 
we  knew  at  least  three  kinds  of  spirits — 
souls,  angels,  and  God.  Souls  I  told  you 
about  when  we  first  met.  At  our  next 
meeting  I  told  you  about  angels.  And 
now  I  will  tell  you  of  the  greatest  spirit 
of  all,  namely,  GOD — the  Being  we  pray 
to,  the  Being  we  speak  of  so  often  in 
the  Church,  the  Being  whose  great  name 
wicked  people  sometimes  take  in  vain. 

You  must  not  think  that  I  will  try  to 
tell  you  every  tiling  about  God.  I  could 
not  do  it  if  I  wished,  for  I  do  not  myself 
know  every  thing  about  him.  Indeed,  I 
know  very  little  about  him  compared  with 
what  there  is  to  be  known — He  is  so  great 
a  being.  But  the  little  I  do  know  is  very 
important,  and  I  will  tell  it  to  you  just  as 
a  father  brings  home  to  his  children  a  few 
grains  of  sand  from  the  great  sea-shore 
that  winds  all  around  the  world. 

God  is  like  us  in  some  things.  Like  us, 
he  thinks,  feels,  chooses;  and,  like  our 


58  SUNDAY  AFTEKJSTOONS. 

souls,  he  cannot  be  seen  with  our  coarse 
eyes.  But  there  are  many  things  in  which 
he  is  very  different  from  our  spirits.  He 
has  no  one  body  in  which  he  lives.  No 
voice  of  his  goes  ringing  daily,  and  almost 
every  moment,  through  the  air  as  our 
voices  do.  Our  houses  are  sounding  with 
words  from  morning  to  night ;  the  streets 
and  fields  echo  with  calls  and  shouts  and 
talks ;  but  these  are  human  voices  only. 
Never  once  have  we  heard  God's  voice 
among  them.  We  turn  our  ear  upward, 
and  then  downward ;  we  set  it  toward 
every  part  of  the  sky ;  we  listen  with  all 
our  might  for  something  that  seems  like 
the  voice  of  God.  But  we  hear  nothing 
but  the  whispering  breeze,  the  humming 
insects,  and  the  talking  or  shouting  men. 
He  speaks  no  words  that  we  can  hear. 
God  is  always  silent  among  us.  Years 
come  and  go,  life-times  pass  away,  and  it 
is  all  the  same — the  same  unbroken  still- 
ness. You  never  heard  God  say  any 
thing ;  your  fathers  will  tell  you  that  they 


God.  59 

never  have  heard  the  tones  of  his  voice ; 
your  forefathers  for  hundreds  of  years  will 
say  as  much.  He  has  been  known  to 
speak  on  the  earth ;  but  the  last  time  of 
his  doing  it,  so  far  as  we  know,  was  more 
than  eighteen  hundred  years  ago.  Then 
his  voice  fell  from  the  sky,  and  some  men 
said  that  it  thundered.  But  now  he  is 
always  silent. 

Very  different  from  us,  also,  is  God  in 
another  thing.  He  can  see  and  do  things 
any  distance  away  just  as  well  as  he  can 
nigh.  Your  souls  come  and  look  out  at 

o 

your  eyes,  and  see  the  things  that  are  very 
near  you  quite  plainly ;  but  as  soon  as  you 
begin  to  look  a  little  way  off  every  thing 
gets  dim,  and  a  little  farther  away  you  can 
see  nothing  at  all.  Your  souls  take  hold 
of  your  hands  and  work  easily  on  things 
your  hands  can  reach,  but  on  things  miles 
away  they  cannot  act  at  all.  They  have 
to  send  messengers.  They  have  to  shoot 
with  the  cannon.  They  have  to  stretch 
the  telegraph  wires.  That  is  to  say,  they 


60  SUNDAY  AFTEKNOONS. 

have  to  make  ^connection  in  some  way  with 
the  thing  to  be  acted  on.  But  it  is  not  so 
with  God.  He  can  see  things  equally  well 
a  thousand  inches  and  a  thousand  miles 
away — equally  well  where  he  is,  and  great 
star-distances  away  where  he  is  not.  He 
can  work  on  the  most  far-away  things  just 
as  well  as  he  can  on  the  nearest — just  as 
easily  and  quickly  at  the  sun,  or  places  in- 
finitely farther  off,  as  he  can  just  here 
where  he  happens  to  be.  Distance  makes 
no  difference  with  his  seeing  or  his  doing. 
A  thousand  millions  of  miles  counts  no 
more  than  a  foot.  It  is  all  the  same  as  if 
he  were  every-where  at  once. 

It  takes  some  time  for  the  arrow,  though 
shot  from  a  strong  bow  strongly  pulled,  to 
reach  its  mark.  It  takes  time  for  even  the 
sun  to  shoot  its  swift  rays  to  us.  But 
God  can  shoot  his  sight  or  his  power  to 
the  end  of  the  universe  in  no  time  at  all. 
Before  we  can  think  it  is  there.  As  soon 
as  it  starts  it  reaches  the  end  of  its 
journey. 


God.  61 

Very  much  like  this  is  another  wonder- 
ful thing  which  you  ought  to  think  of. 
God  is  always  seeing  and  doing.  Much 
of  the  time  we  keep  our  eyes  shut  and 
see  nothing  at  all.  Much  of  the  time  we 
are  tired  and  can  do  nothing.  But  God 
never  sleeps,  is  never  tired.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  night  to  him.  He  keeps 
seeing  and  seeing,  doing  and  doing,  day 
and  night,  summer  and  winter,  all  the 
same. 

No  doubt  it  is  hard  for  you  to  under- 
stand how  all  this  can  be,  it  is  so  unlike 
what  you  can  do.  And  yet  it  is  not  un- 
like what  your  heart  can  do.  How  it 
goes  on  beating  all  the  while,  day  and 
night,  without  ever  resting  or  needing  to 
rest  a  single  moment.  Yonder  is  a  man 
eighty  years  old,  and  yet  his  heart  has 
not  once  stopped  beating  since  the  day  he 
was  born,  and  it  is  not  tired  yet.  God  is 
like  that  heart ;  or  rather,  he  is  like  the 
bright  sun  and  stars  that  keep  always 
moving  and  shining—never  once  stopping 


62  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

through  all  the  ages,  and  yet  as  bright 
and  fresh  now  as  they  were  when  men  first 
saw  them.  Think  of  God  as  a  great  eye 
that  is  never  tired  of  seeing.  Think  of 
him  as  a  great  hand  that  is  never  tired  of 
working. 

Another  thing  about  God.  He  is  per- 
fectly liappy.  Men  sometimes  say  that 
they  are  perfectly  happy,  but  they  do  not 
mean  what  they  say.  There  is  always 
some  drawback  to  their  enjoyment,  some 
bitter  to  their  sweet,  some  sharp  stones  or 
thorns  on  the  road  they  are  traveling. 
And,  taking  months  and  years  together, 
we  all  have  something  worse  to  speak  of 
than  enjoyments  not  quite  so  large  and 
solid  as  they  might  be.  We  have  pains, 
sorrows,  sometimes  miseries.  But  God  is 
always  as  happy  as  he  can  be.  Tis  not 
with  him  as  it  is  with  us,  now  content  and 
now "  discontented,  now  happy  and  now 
wretched — it  is  perfect  bliss  all  the  while. 
You  liave  seen  the  sun  when  it  had  not  .a 
single  spot  or  speck  of  cloud  on  its  bright 


God.  63 

face.  You  have  seen  a  spring  of  beauti- 
fully clear  water,  not  merely  half  or  quar- 
ter full  but  running  over  at  the  brim. 
You  have  seen  our  Connecticut  not  merely 
covering  its  bed,  so  that  you  could  see  no 
rocks  nor  patches  of  sand,  but  overflowing 
all  its  banks,  so  that  all  the  low  meadows 
around  were  covered.  Well,  such  is  the 
happiness  of  God — an  unspotted  sun,  a 
full  spring,  an  overflowing  river. 

The  next  thing  I  shall  speak  of  is  often 
thought  very  hard  to  be  understood ;  but 
it  is  too  important  to  be  left  out  in  telling 
about  God.  God  is  three.  God  is  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Spirit.  The  Son  is  he  who 
was  in  Jesus  Christ  when  he  lived  on  the 
earth  many  centuries  ago.  The  Holy  Spirit 
is  he  who  makes  bad  men  good  and  good 
men  better,  especially  in  what  you  have 
heard  called  revivals  of  religion.  Some- 
times a  great  many  persons  in  a  place 
break  off  their  sins  and  bad  characters  at 
the  same  time,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  in  their 
hearts  is  what  persuades  them  to  do  it. 


64  SUNDAY  AETEKNOONS. 

And  the  Father  is  he  who  sent  the  Son 
and  sends  the  Holy  Spirit.  These  three 
are  all  joined  to  each  other  in  some  way 
that  we  know  nothing  about,  so  as  to  make 
but  one  being,  but  one  God.  You  must 
not  think  there  are  three  Gods.  This 
would  be  a  very  wrong  and  dangerous 
thought.  There  is  but  one  God  :  only  this 
one  is  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  as 
closely  joined  together  as  are  your  three 
powers  of  thinking,  feeling,  and  choosing. 
These  three  powers  are  not  the  same,  but 
they  are  all  equally  great  and  honorable, 
and  all  belong  to  one  soul.  So  the  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Spirit  are  not  the  same,  but 
they  are  equally  great  and  honorable,  and 
together  make  one  God. 

A  few  years  ago  and  there  were  no  such 
things  as  your  souls.  They  have  but  just 
begun  to  be.  But  there  never  was  a  time 
when  there  was  no  God.  Go  back  in  your 
thoughts  as  far  as  you  can — go  back  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  millions  of  years — 
and  God  was  living  then.  Go  back  as 


God.  65 

many  times  this  great  number  of  years  as 
there  are  specks  of  dust  in  the  whole  great 
world  we  live  on — God  was  living  then. 
He  has  always  lived.  He  never  had  a  be- 
ginning. What  a  thing  to  think  of — 
never  a  beginning,  never  a  beginning ! 
You  must  try  to  get  hold  of  this  thought 
so  as  to  feel  how  great  a  difference  there  is 
between  God  and  us,  who  were  just  noth- 
ings only  a  few  years  ago.  A  being  who 
never  began  cannot  but  be.  Nothing  can 
destroy  him.  He  will  go  on  living  forever 
and  forever,  and  it  will  be  because  it  will 
not  be  possible  for  him  to  stop  living. 
Our  souls,  now  that  they  have  begun  to 
live,  will  always  keep  on  living,  (in  this 
respect  they  are  like  God,)  but  it  will  not 
be  because  they  cannot  be  made  to  die. 
A  plenty  of  power,  such  as  I  shall  speak 
of  soon,  could  strike  them  out  of  being  in 
a  moment  more  easily  than  you  can  lift  a 
finger.  God  has  only  to  say  in  his  heart, 
Let  them  become  nothings,  and,  quick  as 
a  flash,  our  places  would  be  empty.  One 


66  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

could  never  find  us  again,  though  he  should 

O  '  O 

go  hunting  through  all  the  worlds.  That 
word  would  be  the  last  of  us — quite 
blotted  out.  But  God  cannot  die.  He  is 
such  a  being  that  he  could  no  more  be 
made  to  die  than  two  and  two  could  be 
made  to  be  five.  All  the  power  in  the 
world  or  out  of  it,  all  the  power  you  can 
think  of,  cannot  do  such  an  impossible 
thing. 

When  we  began  God  made  us.  He 
made  us,  and  all  things  that  we  see,  and 
all  things  that  are.  Himself  is  the  only 
thing  he  did  not  make.  All  the  fields  and 
waters  and  skies,  all  the  plants  and  ani- 
mals and  men,  all  the  dust  itself  which 
they  are  made  of,  all  the  souls  of  men,  all 
the  angels,  all  the  matter  and  spirit  that 
have  been,  are,  or  shall  be — you  must  look 
to  him  as  the  Maker  of  all.  What  is  of 
most  consequence  to  be  remembered  is 
that  he  made  us,  bodies  and  souls — not 
merely  put  us  together,  as  a  carpenter  does 
a  house,  but  made  the  very  materials  which 


God.  67 

he  put  together.  Of  course  no  man  can 
do  any  thing  like  this.  He  cannot  make  the 
smallest  bit  of  dust.  He  can  make  tools, 
machines,  houses,  that  are  really  quite  won- 
derful ;  but  then  he  must  have  something 
to  make  his  watches  and  locomotives  and 
palaces  out  of.  Who  ever  heard  of  a  man 
making  something  out  of  nothing  !  This 
is  what  only  God  can  do.  Of  course  you 
cannot  understand  how  he  does  it.  No- 
body understands  this.  But  a  great  many 
things  are  true  which  we  cannot  explain, 
and  this  amon<r  others — that  God  made  us 

O 

and  all  other  things  out  of  just  nothing. 
Hence  he  owns  us  and  all  things.  No 
man  has  a  right  to  think  that  he  owns  an- 
other man  ;  no  man  has  a  right  to  think 
that  he  owns  himself.  God  is  the  only 
owner  of  a  man.  He  can  fairly  claim  us 
and  all  that  we  call  ours.  If  a  man  has 
a  house  to  live  in  God  made  the  carpenter 
that  built  it,  the  iron  of  the  tools  it  was 
built  with,  and  the  wood  it  was  built  of. 
If  a  man  has  a  farm  or  cattle  or  money, 


68  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

God  made  those  acres,  even  to  the  smallest 
atom  of  dust  that  is  in  them.  He  made 
the  cattle  and  the  grass  that  keeps  them 
alive.  He  made  the  gold  and  silver  deep 
in  the  mines,  together  with  the  fires  that 
melted  them  and  the  hands  that  coined 
them.  So  we  are  his,  and  ours  are  his. 
The  grown-up  people  and  all  they  call 
theirs — they  are  his.  The  children  and 
all  they  call  theirs — they  are  his. 

You  have  heard  of  great  kings  living 
gloriously  in  their  palaces.  Golden  crowns 
are  on  their  heads.  Golden  scepters  are 
in  their  hands.  They  sit  on  thrones  and 
wear  robes  that  blaze  with  gold  and  pre- 
cious stones.  But  the  great  thing  is  that 
such  men  are  very  powerful  and  can  do 
almost  any  thing  they  choose  with  the 
people  under  them.  Others  look  up  to 
them  with  great  admiration  and  say,  May 
it  please  your  majesties.  Yet  the  greatest 
of  these  kings  is  not  so  great  a  king  as 
God.  They  who  know  him  best  call  him 
"  King  of  kings,"  because  he  rules  over  all 


God.  69 

the  kings  of  the  world  as  well  as  over  all 
other  people.  Heaven,  where  good  angels 
live  and  where  good  men  go  when  they 
die,  is  his  glorious  palace.  There  he 
reigns  in  glory  over  armies  and  armies  be- 
yond our  counting — hosts  whose  greatest 
delight  it  is  to  haye  him  reign  over  them. 
He  reigns  over  all  other  worlds  too — over 
all  the  stars  you  see  in  the  sky  as  well  as 
over  the  world  on  which  we  live.  He 
gives  laws  to  every  thing  about  us.  He 
tells  us  what  we  are  to  do,  and  he  tells 
the  stones,  the  trees,  the  winds,  the  waters, 
the  lightnings,  what  they  are  to  do.  He 
has  his  shining  servants  who  come  and  go 
at  his  bidding.  He  has  his  glittering  ar- 
mies that  march  and  that  fly.  He  has  his 
court  and  his  distant  provinces.  He  has 
his  rewards  and  punishments,  his  sword 
of  justice  and  scepter  of  mercy.  A  great 
king  is  God,  dwelling  gloriously  in  heaven, 
his  palace.  Never  such  a  king  ! 

But  it  will  not  be  of  much  use  for  us  to 
remember  that  G6d  is  a  great  king  unless 


70  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

we  remember  certain  other  things.  One 
of  them  is  this :  From  his  glorious  throne 
and  palace  in  the  sky  God  looks  down  and 
away  and  sees  all  that  happens,  day  and 
night,  in  this  world — all  the  great  things 
and  all  the  small  things,  all  things  done 
under  the  blaze  of  day  and  all  things  done 
under  the  blackness  of  night,  all  things 
that  happen  outside  of  a  man  and  all 
things  that  happen  inside  of  him.  Noth- 
ing escapes  the  eye  of  God — not  even  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  hidden  deep  within 
you  and  never  yet  put  into  words  or  even 
looks.  Not  a  wish  have  you  but  God 
knows  it  as  soon  as  you  do.  Are  you 
about  making  up  your  minds  to  do  some- 
thing good  or  bad — God  watches  all  your 
plans  and  motives  as  they  by  little  and 
little  take  shape  in  you,  and  knows  much 
more  about  them  than  you  yourselves  do. 
All  vour  hopes  and  fears,  all  your  pains 
and  pleasures,  all  your  works  and  plays, 
the  smallest  as  well  as  the  greatest  of  them, 
are  at  once  plain  as  day  to  him.  Take 


God.  71 

you  never  so  much  pains  to  be  secret,  he 
has  already  found  you  out.  Get  on  as 
well  as  you  may  in  hiding  things  from  the 
prying  eyes  of  parents  and  teachers,  there 
is  One  from  whom  you  cannot  hide  the 
smallest  thing,  no,  not  for  one  moment  after 
it  has  come  to  be.  Do  not  think  that  be- 
cause heaven  is  so  far  away  God  cannot 
see  you — his  eye  makes  no  account  of  dis- 
tance. Do  not  think  that  because  you  are 
so  small  and  your  matters  so  small,  God 
does  not  notice  you  and  yours — his  eye 
finds  out  the  smallest  things  as  well  as  the 
greatest.  When  a  man  wants  to  see  some- 
thing very  far  away  he  has  to  get  what  is 
called  a  telescope  to  help  him,  and  even 
then  he  cannot  see  most  of  the  things  hid- 
den in  the  distance.  When  a  man  wants 
to  see  something  very  small  he  has  to  put 
his  eye  to  what  is  called  a  microscope,  and 
even  then,  let  him  do  his  best,  he  can- 
not see  but  a  small  part  of  small  things. 
But  God  needs  no  telescope  to  see  far- 
off  things,  and  all  of  them.  He  needs 


72  SUNDAY  AFTEKNOONS. 

no  microscope  to  see  small  things,  and 
all  of  them.  His  eye  out-travels  all  our 
glasses,  and,  though  it  be  at  the  very  ends 
of  the  universe,  finds  out  every  secret 
thing 

God  not  only  sees  all  that  is  passing 
every-where,  but  he  can,  without  moving 
from  his  place  in  heaven,  do  with  you  and 
me  and  all  things  just  as  he  pleases.  Sup- 
pose he  wants  to  make  us  great  or  small, 
sick  or  well,  wise  or  foolish,  unknown  or 
famous,  happy  or  miserable,  he  can  do  it 
in  an  instant.  Suppose  he  wants  to  strike 
us  into  nothing  or  into  the  place  where 
wicked  angels  are,  he  can  do  it  in  an  in- 
stant. He  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  will 

O 

it.  No  strength  nor  cunning  can  prevent 
what  he  wills  from  coming  to  pass.  You 
know  that  when  we  will  to  have  any  thing 
done  that  is  very  far  from  settling  the 
matter.  We  have  to  follow  up  our  willing 
with  working,  and,  if  we  have  to  act  at  a 
distance,  with  traveling,  and  even  then  we 
are  by  no  means  sure  of  gaining  our  ob- 


God.  73 

ject.  But,  with  God,  to  will  and  to  do 
are  the  same  thing.  Just  as  soon  as  he 
decides  that  a  thing  shall  at  once  be,  at 
once  it  is.  The  willing  begins  and  ends 
the  whole  matter.  Should  we  try  to  re- 
sist him  that  would  make  no  difference. 
Should  all  the  world  come  to  our  help,  and 
all  the  angels  besides,  it  would  make  no 
difference.  God's  will  and  power,  from 
away  where  he  sits  throned  in  the  sky, 
would  conquer  us  in  an  instant.  God  is 

ALMIGHTY. 

Yet  for  all  that  God  is  so  strong,  able 
to  do  in  an  instant  just  what  he  pleases, 
able  to  do  all  things,  he  never  does  any 
thing  wrong.  This  is  a  beautiful  fact — 
the  other  was  a  grand  one.  Both  beauti- 
ful and  grand  is  it  to  know  that  God  never 
makes  a  bad  use  of  his  wonderful  power, 
that  no  foolish  nor  bad  thing  is  ever  done 
by  him.  We  need  not  fear  his  treating  us 
worse  than  we  deserve  through  either  mis- 
take or  cruelty.  This  is  very  comforting. 
It  is  beautiful  to  see  at  least  one  being  the 


74  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

white  robes  of  whose  life  have  uo  spot 
upon  them. 

Never  doing  any  thing  wrong  himself, 
he  does  not  like  to  have  others  do  wrong. 
He  is  displeased  with  us  when  we  do  so. 
Seeing  all  you  do,  whether  done  by  day  or 
night,  whether  without  your  body  or 
within  your  soul,  if  he  sees  you  doing  what 
you  ought  not,  be  sure  he  is  offended  at 
you.  And  if  you  keep  on  doing  badly  he 
will  not  stop  at  being  offended.  He  will 
go  on  to  punish  you.  And  he  can  go  very 
far  in  the  way  of  punishing.  If  we  will 
not  be  persuaded  to  cease  doing  evil  and 
to  learn  doing  well,  he  will  at  last  shut  us 
in  with  those  wicked  angels,  of  whom  I 
have  told  you,  in  their  dreadful  world. 
Above  all  thing's  let  us  be  careful  not  to 

O 

come  to  this.     Better  to  have  any  thing 
else  happen  to  us  ! 

Though  God  is  so  displeased,  and  at  last 
so  stern,  with  those  who  do  wickedly,  you 
must  not  suppose  that  he  is  a  harsh  and 
cruel  being.  This  would  be  doing  him 


Bod.  75 

great  injustice,  for  really  he  is  the  most 
patient  and  loving  of  beings.  Your 
fathers  and  mothers,  however  much  they 
may  love  you,  have  no  heart  at  all  com- 
pared with  God.  Though  we  are  great 
sinners  against  him,  he  is  giving  us  all  the 
while  millions  on  millions  of  good  things, 
in  fact  all  the  fair  and  pleasant  things  we 
have,  to  make  us  comfortable  and  happy 
in  this  world.  He  has  sent  us  a  Book  from 
heaven  to  tell  us  how  to  be  good  and 
happy  forever.  He  has  come  himself  to 
shed  his  own  blood  and  life  to  take  away 
our  sins,  if  we  will  be  sorry  for  them. 
Every  day  he  sends  the  Holy  Spirit  to  try 
to  make  us  good,  and  does  not  give  it  up 
though  the  treatment  he  gets  is  very  far 
from  what  it  should  be.  By  every  means 
he  is  trying  to  take  you  and  us  all  to  live 
with  him  forever  in  the  glorious  heaven 
where  he  reigns.  This  is  what  he  would 

o 

love  to  do.  His  heart  is  in  this.  He  threat- 
ens and  punishes  only  because  he  must  do 
so  to  keep  wickedness  from  filling  theworld. 


76  SUNDAY  AFTEBNOONS. 

This  is  the  great  and  good  Being  to 
whom  we  pray.  This  is  he  whom  we  wor- 
ship and  preach  about  in  the  churches. 
This  is  he  of  whom  your  teachers  in  the 
Sunday-school,  and  I  hope  your  parents  at 
home,  tell  you.  It  is  the  same  being  you 
read  of  in  the  Bible  and  many  other  good 
books,  and  whom  good  people  every-where 
worship  and  love  and  fear  and  obey.  And, 
do  you  know,  I  should  never  have  thought 
of  preaching  to  you  about  God  had  I  not 
wanted  to  persuade  you  to  fear  and  love 
and  serve  him  also.  Such  a  great  and 
good  being — one  who  never  himself  began 
to  be,  but  from  whom  all  other  things  be- 
gan— one  who  sits  in  heaven  as  a  glorious 
king,  and  from  thence  sees  all  that  hap- 
pens and  all  that  you  do,  and  is  so  strong 
and  knowing  that  he  can,,  without  stirring 
from  his  place,  do  with  you  and  all  things 
just  as  he  pleases — one  who  never  does 
wrono;  himself  and  does  not  like  to  have 

O 

others  do  it — who  is  patient  and  loving 
and  pitiful  beyond  measure,  and  tries  ever 


God.  77 

to  make  us  fit  for  heaven  and  then  take 
us  there — this  is  a  being  none  of  us  can 
afford  to  displease,  and  whom  it  ought  to 
be  easy  for  us  to  love  and  serve.  It  is 
easy  for  you  to  do  it,  now  that  you  are 
young — easy  compared  with  what  it  will 
be  by  and  by.  By  and  by  it  will  be  very 
hard.  Now  is  the  time  to  make  the  great 
God  your  friend  and  father.  I  hope  you 
will  not  fail  to  do  it,  and  will  grow  up 
not  like  many  who  forget  him  and  break 
his  holy  laws  and  become  miserable  for- 
ever, but  to  love  him  as  your  best  friend 
and  try  to  do  all  things  that  please  him, 
and  so  at  last  go  to  live  with  him  in  glory 
everlasting  in  heaven. 

o 

I  saw  two  little  boys.  They  lived  in 
the  same  place,  were  of  nearly  the  same 
age,  dressed  much  alike,  and  played  to- 
gether. One  day  they  both  stood  where 
two  ways  met,  and  one  said,  I  will  go  this 
way,  and  the  other  said,  I  will  take  the 
other.  So  they  parted.  For  a  while  they 
were  so  near  each  other  that  they  could 


78  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

talk  together,  but  soon  they  went  too  far 
apart  for  this,  and  then  they  lost  sight  of 
each  other.  But  I  could  see  them  still, 
and  I  saw  that  the  path  on  which  one  boy 
was  going  kept  creeping  up,  and  was  all 
the  while  getting  brighter  and  pleasanter, 
while  that  on  which  the  other  was  going 
kept  creeping  down,  and  was  all  the  while 
getting  darker  and  drearier.  At  last  it 
grew  hard  to  see,  so  I  took  a  spy-glass 
and  kept  on  watching.  And  at  last  I  saw 
him  on  the  rising  path  get  up  so  high  and 
become  so  bright  that  he  seemed  almost 
like  a  star,  and  then  I  saw  him  go  in  at  the 

'  O 

gates  of  a  beautiful  city.  Then  I  turned  to 
watch  the  other  boy,  and  I  watched  him 
going  down  till  at  last  he  seemed  at  the 
bottom  of  a  deep  pit,  and  his  clothes  were 
all  rags,  and  his  face  looked  so  wicked  and 
O  so  sad  !  so  sad  it  made  my  heart  ache. 
Then  came  a  flash  where  he  stood.  I  never 
saw  him  again.  And  this  was  the  child 
who  took  to  sinful  ways.  The  other  set  out 
to  love  and  serve  God,  and  God  took  him. 


The  Empire  of  God.  79 


IY. 

THE   EMPIKE   OF   GOD. 

AN  empire  is  a  large  region  ruled  over 
by  a  king  or  emperor. 

Sometimes  an  empire  is  very  large, 
including  many  countries  that  stretch  along 
for  thousands  of  miles.  Such  is  the  Rus- 
sian empire.  One  almost  gets  tired  at  the 
mere  idea  of  traveling  about  such  immense 
coasts,  across  such  immense  plains  and 
mountains  and  seas,  over  so  many  mill- 
ions on  millions  of  square  miles  of  land 
and  water  as  belong  to  this  very  large 
empire. 

But  I  am  now  to  tell  about  an  empire 
still  larger  than  this,  and  far  larger  than 
any  other  the  world  ever  saw.  It  is  that 
great  territory  over  which  God  rules  as 
king.  No  other  realm  like  this.  The  sun 
never  shone  on  one  so  broad  and  grand. 


80  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

By  the  side  of  it  all  other  empires  that  we 
see  or  read  of,  if  put  together,  would  be 
of  no  account. 

For  see.  All  other  empires  are  only 
parts  of  this.  All  our  \vorld  belongs  to  it. 
All  the  American  countries,  north  and 
south — all  the  countries  of  the  Old  World 
away  to  the  sunrising — all  the  islands, 
great  and  small,  that  dot  the  ocean  for 
twenty-four  thousand  miles — all  the  oceans 
themselves,  that  no  nations  pretend  to 
own — all  belong  to  this  one  great  empire 
of  God.  Republics,  monarchies,  deserts — 
called  by  this  name  and  by  that,  claimed 
by  this  nation  and  by  that,  inhabited  or 
uninhabited — heathen  lands  that  know  not 
God  as  well  as  those  lands  where  he  is 
worshiped  and  served — they  all  belong 
to  this  heavenly  empire.  What  a  great 
empire  it  is ! 

But  great  as  is  the  empire  which  all  the 
countries  and  seas  of  the  world  make,  they 
are  but  a  small  part  of  the  empire  over 
which  God  reigns.  Look  up  at  the  sky 


The  Empire  of  God.  81 

some  bright  night.  You  see  it  all  sown 
with  stars.  If  you  could  go  toward  almost 
any  one  of  these  stars,  swift  as  the  light- 
ning, for  thousands  of  years,  you  would 
on  coming  to  it  find  it  a  much  larger  world 
than  this  on  which  we  live.  We  can  see 
some  twenty  millions  of  such  worlds  in  a 
fair  night,  and  each  of  them  has  about  it 
a  family  of  many  other  worlds  which  we 
cannot  see  at  all.  And  there  is  not  one  of 
them  which,  if  we  should  go  to  it  and 
question  it,  would  fail  to  confess  that  it 
belongs  to  God.  He  is  its  king.  He 
owns  and  rules  it.  It  is  one  of  the  many 
countries  of  his  empire. 

Is  this  the  end  ?  Have  we  found  the 
last  countries  ruled  over  by  God  ?  If  we 
go  farther  shall  we  come  to  the  territory 
of  another  king — come  to  other  worlds 
which  God  does  not  own  or  to  no  territo- 
ries at  all  ?  Do  not  think  it.  Could  you 
stand  on  the  most  distant  world  that  we 
can  see,  you  would  see  just  as  many  and 
distant  worlds  beyond  you  as  you  do  now ; 


82  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

and  if  from  that  point  you  should  travel 
on  again  as  far  as  to  the  last  twinkling 
star  it  would  be  all  the  same ;  and  so  on 
forever,  for  aught  I  know.  Wherever  you 
found  a  world  you  would  find  it  belonging 
to  the  empire  of  God.  And  should  you 
ever  come  to  an  end  of  worlds  you  would 
never  come  to  the  end  of  that  great  sky 
in  which  the  worlds  are  moving  about  like 

O 

floating  islands  in  a  shoreless  ocean.  And 
this  shoreless  sky  itself  belongs  to  God. 
Empty  space  is  as  much  his  as  are  the 
solid  worlds.  No  part  of  it  which  he 
does  not  own  and  rule.  He  sees  it.  His 
power  is  there.  At  any  time  he  chooses 
he  can  make  it  shine  with  matter  and 
swarm  with  life. 

Of  course  you  will  feel  that  this  is  a 
wonderfully  great  empire.  What  line 
could  go  around  it  ?  What  ship  could  sail 
across  it  ?  What  map  could  give  all  its 
provinces,  far  and  near?  What  lightning 
on  its  fiery  path  could  ever  come  in  sight 
of  the  end  ?  No  boundaries,  no  neighbors, 


The  Empire  of  God.  83 

nothing  beyond  it — the  sum  total  of  all 
things — behold  the  empire  of  God  ! 

And  about  as  populous  with  living 
beings  as  it  is  vast.  The  air,  the  seas,  the 
lands  of  our  world,  are  alive  with  animals 
of  almost  innumerable  forms.  What  mul- 
titudes of  men  now  living !  What  hosts 
of  men  who  did  live  on  the  earth,  and 
whose  souls  when  they  went  away  went 
somewhere,  and  are  living  to-day  some- 
where in  the  empire  of  God  as  truly  as 
they  ever  did  !  And  then  think  of  the 
many,  many  beings  there  must  be  in  the 
untold  millions  of  other  worlds  that  we 
know  of !  I  should  be  sorry  to  be  put  at 
counting  them.  I  would  sooner  undertake 
to  count  all  the  leaves  on  the  trees  and  all 
the  sands  on  the  shores.  Yes,  I  wrould 
rather  try  to  do  this  than  to  reckon  up  all 
the  spirits  even  that  are  to  be  found  in 
all  the  stretches  of  space.  The  population 
of  India  or  China  astonishes  us — that  of 
God's  whole  empire  would  confound  us 
and  take  our  breath  awav.  Nations  num- 


84  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

berless,  races  on  races  without  end,  mighty 
populations  added  to  mighty  populations, 
till  our  strongest  thought  staggers  and 

O  O  OO 

falls  under  the  burden  !  Once  in  ten 
years  men  go  round  all  our  country  and 
count  up  all  the  people.  The  census  we 
say  is  taken,  and  we  stand  astonished  in 
the  presence  of  forty  millions  of  people. 
But  not  even  the  angels  could  take  the 

O 

census  of  God's  empire.  Suppose  the 
swiftest  of  them  should  go  forth  and 
sweep  in  every  direction  on  their  mighty 
pinions,  counting,  counting,  counting — I 
tell  you  their  wings  would  droop  before 
finishing  a  single  corner  of  the  empire. 
That  census  could  not  be  taken — no,  not 
even  by  the  Gabriels.  God  himself  alone 
can  number  all  his  subjects. 

A  country  may  be  very  large  and  yet 
be  very  poor.  It  may  be  a  Siberia — little 
more  than  rocks  and  ice-fields.  It  may  be 
a  Sahara — little  more  than  burning  sands. 
But  not  far  away  is  another  great  country 
of  a  very  different  sort.  It  is  naturally 


The  Empire  of  God.  85 

full  of  all  sorts  of  valuable  things.  It  has 
rich  soils,  delightful  climates,  fat  pastures, 
tempting  grain-fields,  fruits  and  plants  of 
ten  thousand  useful  kinds,  founts,  streams, 
rivers,  lakes  every- where,,  great  forests, 
productive  fisheries,  endless  mines  of  coal 
and  iron  and  silver  and  gold,  sublime 
mountains,  lovely  vales,  sweet  home-sites 
without  number — in  a  word,  as  we  say,  it 
is  a  country  of  "  vast  resources.'1  Its  peo- 
ple are  proud  of  it.  Its  orators  boast  of 
it.  Its  friends  look  at  it  and  are  glad  ;  its 
enemies  look  at  it  and  are  afraid — so  full 
is  it,  in  air  and  water  and  land,  of  what 
goes  to  make  a  great  and  powerful  empire. 
But  there  is  an  empire  still  richer.  It 
includes  .the  rich  country  I  have  just 
spoken  of  and  many  such  countries  besides. 
In  it  are  all  the  rich  farms  of  the  world, 
all  its  earldoms,  dukedoms,  principalities ; 
all  the  palaces,  treasuries,  armies,  fleets  of 
kings  and  emperors  ;  all  the  useful  things 
and  splendid  things  that  sleep  in  the 
bosom  of  seas  or  bosom  of  land ;  all  arts, 


86  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

manufactures,  civilizations ;  all  the  might 
and  speed  that  hide  in  winds  and  waters 
and  fires  and  lightnings  and  earthquakes 
and  magnetisms  and  gravities  and  glorious 
sweep  of  suns  and  stars ;  all  the  strength 
of  the  strong,  the  wisdom  of  the  wise,  the 
courage  of  the  brave,  the  beauty  of  the 
beautiful,  the  riches  of  the  rich,  the  influ- 
ence of  the  influential,  the  goodness  of  the 
good,  and  ten  thousand  other  sorts  of 
wealth  and  power  not  to  be  found  in  this 
world — all  belong  to  the  empire  of  God. 
Suns  and  stars,  with  all  their  strange  and 
glorious  treasures,  are  in  it.  Heaven  itself 
is  in  it.  The  infinite  power  and  knowl- 
edge of  God  are  every-where  in  it — to  do 
all  things  that  need  to  be  done.  Was 
ever  so  rich  an  empire  ?  No  end  to  its 
stores  and  resources  !  Mountains  of  them 
as  high  as  heaven  !  Oceans  of  them  broad 
and  deep  as  the  sky  !  Did  you  ever  see 
the  like  ?  We  lift  up  both  hands  in  amaze- 
ment. Such  an  empire  can  stand  the  strain 
of  endless  wars.  It  can  afford  to  laugh  at 


The  Empire  of  God.  87 

the  idea  of  being  exhausted.  Indeed,  its 
resources  can  never  become  less — what 
goes  out  here  comes  back  there;  what 
disappears  there  reappears  yonder  in  the 
same  or  in  some  other  form. 

Houses  sometimes  so  shine  in  the  sun- 
beams that  it  is  painful  to  look  at  them. 
I  have  seen  cities  on  sunny  hill-sides  so  lit 
up  with  noon-day  splendors  that  at  a  dis- 
tance they  looked  like  cities  on  fire.  And 
I  have  known,  and  in  part  seen,  a  great 
empire  even  more  glittering  than  glittering 
Genoa  and  Naples  at  their  brightest — as 
glittering  as  the  stars  by  night  or  as  the 
sun  himself  by  day.  In  fact,  the  sun  and 
stars  are  only  a  dimmer  part  of  this  em- 
pire. What  floods  of  brightness  from  our 
summer  sun  !  It  dazzles,  it  blinds — we 
turn  away  our  eyes  in  self-defense.  But 
all  the  stars  are  just  as  bright — being 
themselves  true  suns  with  their  glory 
somewhat  lessened  to  in  by  distance.  And 
even  our  earth,  which  o."ten  looks  to  us  so 
dull  and  dark,  if  seen  fi'oni  afar  would 


88  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

shine  like  the  queenly  moon  or  the  bright 
evening-star.  So  it  is  with  that  part  of 
the  empire  which  we  see,  and  so,  no  doubt, 
it  is  with  that  part  of  it  which  we  do  not 
see  because  so  far  away.  All  sparkles. 
The  light  covers  all  like  royal  robes.  Re- 
motest provinces  flash  like  gems.  Some 
districts  flame  and  dazzle  more  than  noon- 
day suns.  Spangles  beyond  counting, 
lamps  without  end,  immense  diamond-fields 
whose  untold  diamonds  shine  through, 

O       ' 

cities  on  cities  all  round  the  sky  whose 
every  window  is  blazing,  as  if  for  a  vic- 
tory, with  every  possible  color — such  are 
even  the  frontiers  of  the  glorious  empire 
of  God.  Such,  I  say,  are  the  frontiers. 
But  if  we  could  only  see  the  capital — the 
London  or  Rome  of  this  great  empire, 
that  central  region  we  have  learned  to  call 
Heaven — how  dark  all  the  rest  would  seem 
by  the  side  of  that  wonderful  shining 
which  is  "  like  unto  a  stone  most  precious, 
even  like  a  jasper  stone,  clear  as  crystal, 
having  the  glory  of  God  ! " 


The  Empire  of  God.  89 

This  most  brilliant  of  empires  is  natu- 
rally the  most  famous  of  empires.  There 
are  some  realms  of  which  men  only  faintly 
hear.  Once  heard  of,  they  scarcely  get  a 
second  thought.  No  account  is  made  of 
them.  They  are  hardly  more  than  names. 
History  turns  them  off  with  a  paragraph 
or  a  sentence.  Perhaps  the  sentence  is 
almost  or  quite  a  sneer.  But  then  history 
has  also  her  famous  empires — empires 
much  in  the  thoughts  and  on  the  lips  of 
men,  and  to  which,  for  some  reason,  men 
look  up  with  great  respect  and  admiration. 
Such  was  the  Roman  empire.  Such  were 
the  empires  of  Alexander  and  Charlemagne 
and  Napoleon.  These  made  a  great  figure 
in  their  day.  Almost  everybody  has 
heard  of  them.  Their  names  are  still 
sounding  in  the  world  like  trumpets. 
When  people  talk  of  "  glory "  they  are 
very  apt  to  be  thinking  about  the  famous 
empires  that  raised  a  great  wave  in  the 
world's  affairs  in  their  time,  and  which 
wave  is  running  yet. 


90  SUNDAY  AFTEENOONS. 

But  see  an  empire  more  famous  still. 
Who  has  not  heard  of  the  empire  of  the 
Creator  ?  Who  has  not  heard  great  things 
of  it — heard  the  very  greatest  and  sub- 
limest  things  of  it  ?  Not  a  corner  of  the 
universe  where  it  is  not  known.  Not  a 
language  within  the  great  round  of  the 
heavens  which  does  not  speak  of  it  with 
wonder.  As  for  our  corner,  this  little 
earth  on  wrhich  we  live,  all  its  religions 
are  full  of  the  idea,  more  or  less  vailed,  of 
a  Divine  government.  Men's  consciences 
are  full  of  it.  Much  more  the  Bible — a 
book  read  in  more  than  a  hundred  lan- 
guages, spoken  weekly  in  thousands  of 
churches,  and  studied  daily  in  millions  of 
homes.  And  not  in  vain.  The  world 
rings  with  the  fame  of  the  empire.  It  is 
spoken  to  in  endless  prayers.  It  is  praised 
in  ceaseless  hymns.  And  the  great  prais- 
ing music  swells  louder  and  louder  from 
age  to  age.  Never  was  empire  so  much 
on  the  lips  and  in  the  thoughts  of  men — 
especially  of  wise  and  good  men.  They 


The  Empire  of  God  91 

believe  glorious  things  of  it.  To  them  it 
has  a  mighty  history.  To  them  it  is  play- 
ing a  sublime  part.  To  them  it  shows  a 
sublime  procession  of  events  all  its  own — 
kings  and  queens  and  great  captains  clad 
in  purple  and  gold.  Behold  creations, 
miracles,  prophecies,  revelations,  regenera- 
tions, salvations — see  God  in  form  of  man, 
Jesus  dying  on  the  cross,  sinners  purified 
and  forgiven,  ascending  to  heaven — see 
glorious  objects,  glorious  wars,  glorious 
victories,  glorious  fruits  of  victories ! 
Never  did  empire  spread  such  banners — 
never  did  such  armies  march  beneath ! 
As  to  what  it  is,  what  it  has  done,  what 
.it  aims  to  do,  what  it  certainly  will  do, 
this  empire  has  no  equal.  It  is  the  joy 
and  trust  and  hope  and  love,  as  well  as 
fear,  of  all  the  best  of  mankind.  Their 
hearts  build  to  it  monuments  hio-h  as 

O 

heaven.  Their  hearts  raise  to  it  triumph- 
al arches  that  can  span  the  sky.  And  yet 
this  empire  of  God  is  not  thought  as  much 
of  and  celebrated  as  splendidly  here  as  it 


92  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

is  in  most  worlds.  So  1  think.  I  know 
that  there  is  one  immense  country — so  im- 
mense as  to  easily  balance  all  the  rest  of 
the  universe — which  is  always  ringing, 
from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other,  with  the 
praise  of  the  King  eternal,  immortal,  invis- 
ible ;  and  it  almost  seems  as  if  I  could 
hear  at  this  moment  a  voice  pouring  down 
through  the  sky  as  the  voice  of  many 
waters,  and  as  the  voice  of  a  great  thunder, 
and  as  the  voice  of  harpers  harping  with 
their  harps,  saying,  "  Amen  ;  blessing  and 
glory  and  thanksgiving  and  honor  and 
might  and  power  be  to  Him  that  sitteth 
on  the  throne  for  ever  and  ever." 

This  famous  empire  is  very  old.  Who 
can  tell  how  old  it  is  ?  Not  I  nor  any 
other  man.  I  can  easily  tell  how  old  the 
British  empire  is,  and  the  German,  and  I 
am  sure  that  not  an  empire  in  the  world 
and  of  the  world  goes  back  six  thousand 
years.  But  who  knows  when  the  empire 
of  Grod  began,  or  can  tell  a  time  when  it 
was  not  ?  Of  course  there  was  no  begin- 


The  Empire  of  God.  93 

ning  whatever  to  that  shoreless  ocean  of 
space  in  which  swim  the  worlds  as  so  many 
round,  shining  islands.  The  region  itself 
has  always  existed,  has  always  been  full 
of  the  sight  and  power  of  God,  and  so  has 
always  been  an  empire  of  his.  But  there 
must  have  been  a  time  when  it  was  an 
empty  empire — empty  of  every  thing  but 
its  eternal  King.  There  came  a  time  when 
worlds  began  to  roll  and  shine  in  it — when 
the  first  world  started  off  on  its  golden 
round.  When  was  that  ?  I  cannot  tell. 
Perhaps  no  angel,  even,  can  tell.  But  it 
must  have  been  a  very  distant  time — much 
farther  back  than  the  founding  of  any  other 
empire  of  which  we  know.  Learned  men 
will  tell  you  that  our  world  must  have 
been  rolling  for  millions  of  years.  And, 
for  one,  I  have  no  doubt  that  worlds  be- 
yond counting  are  even  older  still — that  it 
would  be  almost  like  counting  eternity  to 
count  the  years  which  have  come  and  gone 
since  untold  stars  began  to  twinkle  in  the 
sky  at  the  bidding  of  the  Creator.  What 


94  SUNDAY  AFTEEISTOONS. 

a  glorious  antiquity !  How  the  little 
earthly  empires  that  so  loudly  boast  of 
their  few  centuries — how  infant-like  they 
look  in  the  venerable  presence  of  such  an 
empire  as  this ! 

This  empire,  old  as  it  is,  has  never  had 
but  one  King.  People  think  it  something 
to  tell  of  if  the  same  family  (father,  son, 
grandson,  and  so  on)  manages  to  hold  the 
same  throne  for  a  few  hundred  years. 
Kings  die  like  other  people.  Indeed,  they 
are  apt  to  die  sooner  than  some  who  lead 
quieter  and  less  tempted  lives.  Forty  or 
fifty  years  at  the  outside  take  away  the 
healthiest  of  them.  Then  comes  his  suc- 
cessor, and,  before  long,  another  successor. 
And,  after  awhile,  the  royal  family  itself 
dies  out,  or  is  set  aside  for  another.  What 
is  called  a  new  dynasty  begins  to  reign. 
So  it  has  happened  over  and  over  again 
in  France  and  other  countries.  So  it  is 
liable  to  happen  at  any  moment  in  any 
empire  the  snn  shines  on. 

But  one  empire  has  never  changed  its 


The  Empire  of  God.  95 

dynasty,  or  even  its  sovereign.  Old  as  it 
is,  almost  making  us  afraid  with  the 
mighty  tale  of  its  years,  it  has  always  had 
the  same  King.  No  successor  has  even 
been  thought  of.  You  will  never  hear  of 
a  new  reign  in  this  wide  realm.  Corona- 
tion Day  will  never  come  twice  here. 
"  God  save  the  King  "  always  means  the 
same  Person.  Some  of  us  are  very  glad 
that  we  do  not  have  to  see  every  now  and 
then  a  regency,  or  a  new  election.  God 
will  never  die.  He  will  never  resign  in 
favor  of  some  other.  He  will  never  throw 
up  his  kingly  power  in  weariness  and  dis- 
gust, as  some  kings  have  done.  But  on, 
steadily  on,  will  his  reign  proceed.  The 
latest  ages  will  see  him  on  the  throne  as 
ever.  From  Everlasting  to  Everlasting  is 
his  name.  I  am  glad  of  it.  This  is  the 
King  for  me.  I  want  no  other.  No  other 
could  begin  to  do  as  well.  No  better 
news  can  come  to  me  than  that  the  great 
and  good  God,  the  wisest  and  best  and 
strongest  of  beings,  will  wear  his  crown 


96  SUNDAY  AFTEB NOONS. 

forever.  Such  good  news  lias  come  to 
me.  "  Rejoice  ye  heaven,  and  let  the 
earth  be  glad ;  for  the  Lord  God  Omnipo- 
tent always  reigneth.1'  No  danger  that 
you  will  some  day  (some  night,  rather) 
wake  up  to  find  the  Great  Throne  vacant 
or  filled  by  a  new  sovereign.  Suppose  the 
worlds  should  some  time  hear  through  all 

O 

their  shining  fleets  the  voice  of  a  mighty 
angel  proclaiming  God  to  be  dead — what 
a  shock  !  Deliver  us  from  this  whatever 
may  happen !  We  slwll  be  delivered 
from  it.  All  who  come  after  us  will  be 
delivered  from  it.  Not  an  insect  need 
tremble  in  its  sunbeam,  not  a  star  nor  soul 
need  tremble  in  its  orbit  lest  the  empire 
fall  into  new  hands.  Go  calmly  and 
brightly  on,  all  ye  worlds ;  that  last  and 
worst  of  calamities  will  be  spared  you. 
"  God  sitteth  king  forever? 

I  have  seen  empires  shake.  I  have  seen 
them  fall,  time  and  again.  And  O  how 
many,  many,  shaking,  trembling,  falling 
empires  have  been  seen  by  those  who  have 


The  Empire  of  God.  97 

gone  before  nie,  away  back  to  the  begin- 
ning !  The  very  ruins  of  some  that  were 
once  famous  and  vast  can  hardly  be  found. 
History  can  count  up  not  a  few  memorable 
examples.  And  I  fully  expect  that  before 
a  great  while  some  empires  that  now  make 
much  show  in  the  world  will  shake  as  a 
tree  does  when  a  mighty  wind  gets  hold 
of  its  branches  and  wrestles  with  them. 
They  will  strain  and  bow  and  fall  head- 
long, as  did  the  empires  of  Alexander  and 
the  Ca3sars.  There  is  not  an  empire  on 
this  globe  that  is  sure  to  be  here  ten  years 
hence — I  might  as  well  have  said  ten  days 
hence.  A  single  day,  between  dawn  and 
dark,  has  laid  low  many  a  kingdom,  and 
is  likely  to  do  it  again.  Not  a  kingdom 
on  earth  but  is  sure  to  fall  some  day, 
strong  as  it  may  now  seem.  In  one  way 
or  another,  at  one  time  or  another,  down 
it  will  come,  never  to  rise  again.  Nothing 
but  its  name  will  be  left — perhaps  not 
even  that.  Alas !  these  trembling,  falling 
things — human  empires  ! 


98  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

But  cheer  up,  for  I  will  now  show  you 
an  empire  that  knows  how  to  stand.  No 
enemies  will  ever  be  able  to  smite  it  to  the 
ground.  It  will  never  become  so  old  and 
feeble  as  to  fall  of  itself,  like  some  old 
tree  that  has  filled  out  its  time,  gradually 
grown  rotten  at  heart  and  dry  in  branch, 
till  at  last  a  breath  of  wind  or  the  weight 
of  a  bird  tumbles  it  to  the  ground.  From 
age  to  age  it  will  stand  mightily  against 
time,  mightily  against  rebellious  men, 
mightily  against  even  the  rebellious  angels 
with  Satan  at  their  head.  It  never  will 
fall — no,  never !  no,  never  !  It  never  will 
be  in  the  least  danger  of  falling.  Nothing 
will  ever  even  make  it  tremble,  or  give  it 
a  single  little  jar  such  as  would  shake  a 
dew-drop  from  its  leaf.  Of  what  other 
empire  can  this  be  said  ?  How  glad  I  am 
that  there  is  one  country  that  can  be 
counted  on — one  great  empire  that  will 
stand  unmoved  and  immovable  all  the 
long  ages  of  eternity  through  !  I  like  to 
see  something  that  is  not  liable  any  mo- 


The  Empire  of  God.  99 

merit  to  come  down  into  the  dust,  some- 
thing to  anchor  safely  by,  something  that 
can  neither  burn  nor  drown  nor  decay,  nor 
be  smitten  into  ruins  or  even  into  danger 

O 

— firmest  of  pyramids,  with  the  whole 
creation  for  its  base !  One  feels  stronger 
and  safer  even  to  see  such  an  everlasting, 
immovable  thing — especially  in  this  world 
where  winds  and  waves  and  earthquakes 
and  steady  blows  of  Time's  great  hammer 
bring,  sooner  or  later,  every  thing  else  into 
the  dust. 

One,  two,  three — perhaps  I  have  known 
as  many  well-governed  countries.  One, 
two,  thirty — certainly  I  have  known  as 
many  countries  ill-governed.  Sometimes 
empires  are  woefully  mismanaged.  Disor- 
der reigns.  There  are  no  steady  laws  or  the 
laws  are  bad.  The  people  are  not  cared 
for — the  sheep  have  no  shepherd.  "  ~No 
shepherd,1'  do  I  say  ?  The  shepherd  is  a 
wolf.  He  watches,  he  tears,  he  devours. 
The  people  are  robbed.  The  people  are 
treated  like  slaves.  The  throne  and  palace 


100  SUNDAY 


glitter,  the  subjects  groan  and  starve. 
Taxes,  taxes,  taxes  —  without  measure  and 
without  end  !  Blood,  blood,  blood  —  scaf- 
folds for  the  great  and  halters  for  the 
small  !  Passed  over  from  the  great  tyrant 
to  lesser  tyrants,  then  from  the  lesser  to 
the  least,  by  successive  turns  of  the  screw, 
through  all  the  grades  of  wicked  officers, 
the  juices  of  the  nation's  life  are  squeezed 
out.  Nothing  but  dry  pumice  is  left.  This 
is  the  way  some  empires  have  been  gov- 
erned. Be  thankful,  children,  that  you 
were  not  born  in  any  such  empire,  but  in 
a  very  different  one  —  the  Empire  of  God. 
For  this  empire,  vast  as  it  is,  is  governed 
in  a  most  noble  and  magnificent  way. 
Nay,  it  is  governed  in  a  way  that  has 
never  been  equaled  —  in  a  way  that  never 
can  be  equaled  —  for  it  is  a  perfect  way. 
You  must  consider  that  God,  who  governs 
this  huge  empire,  is  almighty  and  all-wise 
and  all-good.  This  means  that  his  inten- 
tions are  the  best  possible.  This  means 
that  he  makes  no  mistakes.  This  means 


The  Empire  of  God.  101 

that  he  can  do  all  that  power  can  do.  So 
it  means  that  the  whole  vast  country,  away 
through  all  the  stars,  is  kept  in  the  best 
possible  order.  Its  vastness  does  not  stand 
in  the  way  of  this.  No  Turkish  empire  is 
this — a  few  central  provinces  well  kept 
under,  but  as  one  goes  away  from  the  capi- 
tal disorder  ever  increasing,  until  at  last, 
on  the  frontiers,  the  government  amounts 
to  nothing.  The  most  remote  provinces  of 
God's  empire  are  as  well  cared  for  and 
regulated  as  the  most  central.  All  parts 
are  thoroughly  watched  over,  day  and 
night.  Not  a  soul,  not  a  worm,  escapes 
notice.  Each  is  cared  for  with  an  interest 
and  zeal  that  never  flag.  The  smallest  be- 
ginnings of  wrong  things  are  at  once  no- 
ticed and  put  under  checks.  The  smallest 
beginnings  of  right  things  are  at  once  no- 
ticed and  pat  under  helps.  The  King 
knows  just  what  to  do  to  meet  each  case, 
and  he  always  does  the  right  thing  at  the 
right  moment.  So  it  happens  that  there  is 
no  other  empire  anywhere  that  is  so  capi- 


102  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

tally  governed  as  this.  Of  course  such 
things  as  plants,  waters,  winds,  worlds, 
always  do  just  as  their  Maker  wishes  to 
have  them.  He  never  has  to  find  fault 
with  them.  But  among  spirits  there  is 
some  disobedience,  (much  in  this  world  and 
at  least  one  other,)  but  it  is  always  found 
out,  stopped,  or  properly  punished.  You 
see  there  may  be  a  splendid  government 
over  bad  persons.  However,  I  think  that 
this  government  of  God  is  so  nobly  man- 
aged that  in  most  places  yi  his  empire 
there  is  no  disobedience  at  all,  but  the  peo- 
ple always  do  in  all  respects  just  as  they 
ought.  No  doubt  all  such  places  are 
bright  and  happy.  They  are  gardens. 
They  are  beautiful  as  sunsets.  They  are 
as  beautiful  as  the  lovely  characters  and 
lives  that  dwell  in  them.  And,  by  and 
by,  those  parts  of  the  empire  which  are 
now  disturbed  by  wrong-doers  will  all  be 
quieted,  and  the  wrong-doers  themselves 
will  either  become  good-doers  or  will  be 
shut  up  where  they  can  do  no  more  harm. 


TJie  Laws  of  God.  103 


V. 

THE   LAWS    OF   GOD. 

IF  you  should  go  into  some  men's  houses 
you  would  see  long  rows  of  books 
with  white  leather  covers,  and  if  you 
should  ask  what  sort  of  books  they  are, 
you  would  be  told  that  they  are  law-books. 
And  what  are  law-books  ?  Why,  they  are 
books  that  tell  what  must  be  done.  The 
people  get  together  and  choose  a  number 
of  men  to  go  to  Washington  and  there 
talk  over  what  it  would  be  best  for  people 
to  do,  and  when  they  have  made  up  their 
minds  they  print  what  they  want  in  news- 
papers and  books,  and  bid  the  people  do 
it.  If  anybody  will  not  do  it  he  shall  be 
fined,  or  put  in  prison,  or  some  other  dis- 
agreeable thing  shall  be  done  to  him. 
These  printed  sayings  are  called  laws. 
But  printed  laws  are  not  the  only  ones. 


104  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

By  degrees  men  Lave  fallen  into  the  way 
of  calling  almost  any  thing  a  law  that 
shows  what  a  person  wishes  and  also  has  a 
must  with  it.  Now  you  know  that  there 
are  a  great  many  things  besides  printed 
paper  that  can  do  this.  A  mere  look  or 
motion  of  the  hand  can  do  it.  When 
your  father  looks  at  you  in  a  certain  way, 
though  he  says  not  a  word,  you  know  that 
he  means  that  you  are  to  be  silent,  and 
that  you  must  be.  When  your  teacher 
points  his  finger  at  you  as  you  sit  in  school, 
though  he  says  nothing,  you  know  that  he 
means  that  you  are  not  to  move  about  so 
much,  and  that  you  must  not.  When, 
some  time,  your  father  brings  you  a  letter, 
you  know  at  once  that  you  are  to  carry  it 
to  the  post-office,  and  that  you  must  not 
dream  of  doing  otherwise,  though  he  does 
not  so  much  as  open  his  lips ;  or  if  at  a 
quarter  past  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning 
he  silently  puts  your  school-books  in  your 
hand,  you  know  that  you  are  to  start  off 
at  once  for  school  and  must  do  so.  Now, 


The  Laws  of  God.  105 

such  things  show  what  your  parents  and 
teachers  and  others  want  to  have  done, 
and  mean  to  have  you  do,  just  as  plainly 
as  any  printed  paper  could'  do  it.  So  peo- 
ple have  fallen  into  the  way,  and  very 
properly,  as  I  think,  of  calling  very  many 
things  of  this  sort  "  commands "  and 
"  laws." 

I  will  now  tell  you  something  about 
the  laws  of  that  great  Being  of  whom  I 
was  lately  speaking  to  you,  whose  name  is 
G-od. 

And,  first,  there  are  the  laws  which  God 
has  given  to  such  things  as  have  no  soul 
—to  such  things  as  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars ;  as  stones,  grass,  flowers,  and  trees ; 
as  insects,  fishes,  birds,  and  oxen.  People 
sometimes  call  them  natural  laws.  God 
made  each  of  these  soulless  things  for  a 
good  purpose,  and  so  he  put  in  each  some- 
thing to  show  what  he  wanted  it  to  be 
and  do,  and  with  it  he  put  a  must.  It  is 
all  one  as  though  he  had  said  to  the  star, 
"  Star,  your  business  is  to  shine,  and  shine 


106  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

you  must !  r  to  the  tree,  "  Tree,  your  busi- 
ness is  to  give  shade  and  beauty  and  fruit 
and  fuel,  and  I  bid  you  do  it ! "  to  the 
cattle,  "  Cattle,  your  business  is  to  work 
for  and  feed  man,  and  I  command  you  to 
do  it !  "  There  is  something  in  the  make 
of  each  of  these  things  that  shows  us,  when 
we  look  carefully  at  it,  that  God  meant 
all  this  in  regard  to  it.  In  short,  he  has 
put  his  law  into  it  to  make  it  be  and  do 
what  he  pleases.  He  has  put  his  law  into 
the  bee  to  make  it  build  its  comb  and 
gather  its  honey,  into  the  bird  to  make  it 
fly  in  the  air,  into  the  fish  to  make  it  swim 
in  the  water,  into  the  ox  to  make  it  walk 
and  work  on  the  land. 

This  sort  of  God's  laws  is  given  not 
only  to  such  senseless  and  brute  things  as 
I  have  mentioned,  but  also  to  men,  to  you 
and  me,  and  indeed  to  every  thing  God 
has  made.  He  has  so  made  your  bodies 
that  unless  you  do  so  and  so  they  will  be 
sick — that  unless  you  do  so  and  so  they 
will  not  grow  properly,  but  become  weak, 


The  Laws  of  God.  107 

crooked,  and  painful.  He  has  so  made 
your  minds  that  unless  they  have  a  plenty 
to  do  they  will  be  unhappy — that  unless 
they  get  knowledge,  and  practice  well  at 
trying  to  use  it,  they  will  never  become 
strong  and  able  to  do  much  in  the  world. 

O 

When  we  see  how  you  are  made  it  is  very 
plain  that  God  wants  you  to  do  a  hundred 
things  that  might  be  mentioned,  and  also 
very  plain  that  there  is  a  must-  about  it ; 
if  you  will  not  do  them  he  means,  and 
means  that  you  shall  understand,  that 
you  will  have  to  suffer.  Now  the  things 
in  you  .that  show  all  this  are  God's  natural 
laws.  You  are  bound  to  learn  and  obey 
them,  just  as  though  he  had  sent  them  to 
you  printed  on  paper.  Things  that  have 
not  souls,  for  the  most  part,  obey  this  sort 
of  laws  very  well ;  they  cannot  do  other- 
wise, the  must  is  so  strong  upon  them. 
But  such  beings  as  we  are  can  largely  dis- 
obey ;  but  in  that  case  we  still  do  wrong, 
and  will  have  to  suffer  for  it.  Not  a  few 
people  have  an  idea  that  they  can  break 


108  SUNDAY  AFTEE NOONS. 

this  kind  of  God's  laws  without  any  sin, 
but  it  is  not  so.  And  it  is  well  for  people 
to  begin  to  feel  while  they  are  children 
that  it  is  not  so,  and  to  act  accordingly. 
If  you  will  begin  now  to  be  very  careful 
in  obeying  God's  natural  laws  it  will  save 
you  a  great  many  troubles  and  aches,  and 
perhaps  will  save  you  from  early  graves. 

But  besides  these  laws  of  God  there  is 
another  kind  which  /senseless  and  brute 
things  do*  not  have,  called  the  laws  of  -con- 
science. These  belong  only  to  such  things 
as  have  spirits,  as  men  and  angels.  Some- 
thing within  us,  which  God  put  there,  tells 
us  what  is  right  and  wrong,  what  things 
we  ought  to  do  and  ought  not  to  do,  and 
if  we  will  not  do  what  it  says  it  punishes 
•us.  Have  you  never  felt  it  ?  Have  you 
not  felt  something  within  telling  you  that 
you  must  not  do  such  and  such  things  be- 
cause they  would  be  wrong,  and  then  when 
you  have  done  them  have  you  not  felt  very 
unhappy  ?  Well,  that  something  within 
you  is  conscience.  Its  laws  are  God's 


The  Laws  of  God.  109 

laws.  They  tell  you  what  God  wants  you 
to  do,  and  that  you  must  do  it  or  be  un- 
happy. God  put  them  in  you  for  this  very 
purpose.  He  does  not  give  this  sort  of 
laws  to  stones,  and  trees,  and  birds,  and 
oxen — they  have  no  notion  of  right  and 
wrong.  It  is  only  beings  like  you  who 
have  souls  who  have  the  ideas  of  ought 
and  ought  not.  You  are  having  such  ideas 
all  the  while.  Every  few  minutes  you  are 
feeling  that  it  would  not  be  right  to  do 
this  and  would  be  right  to  do  that,  and 
are  feeling  badly  or  pleasantly  according 
as  you  do  the  one  or  the  other.  At  any 
time  when  you  think  about  such  things 
your  heart  will  tell  you  that  it  is  wrong  to 
tell  falsehoods,  to  take  things  that  do  not 
belong  to  you,  to  disobey  your  parents,  to 
be  quarrelsome,  to  be  idle  and  mischievous 
and  wasteful  and  unthankful,  and  so  on. 
Now  you  must  remember  that  when  you 
hear  your  heart  telling  you  such  things 
you  are  hearing  God's  laws.  He  has  put 
them  into  your  heart  to  show  you  what  he 


110  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

wants  you  to  do,  and  he  says,  You  must 
with  each  of  them.  The  unpleasant  feeling 
which  you  know  you  will  have  unless  you 
do  as  he  says  is  a  part  of  this  must. 

There  is  one  tiring  about  the  laws  of 

O 

God  in  your  heart  which,  perhaps,  I  ought 
not  to  fail  to  tell  you  of  now,  it  is  so  very 
important  for  young  people  to  know  and 
act  on  it  as  early  as  they  can.  This  is 
that,  unless  one  is  careful,  these  laws  very 
easily  get  faded,  blurred,  rubbed  out. 
Suppose  one  of  you  should  go  from  home 
a  long  distance  to  school  and  his  father 
should  write  him  a  letter  telling  him  how 
he  must  behave,  what  books  he  must 
study,  what  clothes  he  must  wear.  Now 
if  this  boy  should  take  no  care  of  this 
letter,  but  let  it  lie  about  on  the  floor,  in 
the  dust,  on  chairs,  benches,  the  ground,  as 
might  happen — rubbed  against  as  chance 
would  have  it  by  any  and  every  thing— 
what  would  be  the  consequence  ?  Why, 
the  writing  would  get  so  faded  and  soiled 
that  it  would  be  a  hard  matter  to  read  it, 


The  Laws  of  God.  Ill 

and  an  easy  matter  to  read  it  wrongly. 
After  a  little  while,  though  the  writing 
was  beautifully  plain  at  first,  it  would  be 
hard  to  spell  out  what  the  wishes  of  that 
father  were,  and  very  likely  great  mistakes 
would  be  made,  and  the  father  made  to  say 
things  that  he  never  intended  to  say. 
That  little  word  "  not "  rubbed  out  would 
change  his  whole  meaning.  This  will  help 
you  to  understand  how.  if  you  are  careless 
about  your  conscience  and  God's  laws 
written  on  it,  you  will  after  awhile  have 
them  less  plain  than  they  now  are — will 
have  them  faded,  blurred,  possibly  quite 
rubbed  out,  and  may  make  great  and 
dreadful  mistakes  in  trying  to  read  them. 
I  assure  you  that  such  things  often  hap- 
pen. So  you  must  take  great  care  of  your 
consciences.  You  must  not  handle  them 
roughly.  You  must  not  let  soiled  and 
soiling  things  come  much  against  them. 
You  must  treat  them  as  people  do  a  beau- 
tiful picture  made  on  the  finest  of  paper — 
they  set  it  in  a  gold  frame,  they  cover  it 


112  SUNDAY  AFTEKNOOJSTS. 

with  glass,  they  hang  it  tip  in  the  neatest 
and  best  room  they  have,  and  go  in  with 
their  friends  to  see,  admire,  and  study  it 
as  often  as  they  can. 

But  besides  these  laws  of  God  written 
in  consciences  and  hearts,  there  is  still  an- 
other kind  nearly  as  much  brighter, 
plainer,  and  nobler  than  these  as  these 
are  brighter  and  nobler  than  the  kind  I 
first  mentioned,  and  which  are  given  to 
stones  and  other  senseless  and  brutal 
things.  Can  you  not  think  what  this  still 
better  kind  is  ?  What  is  that  which  tells 
us  what  we  ought  to  do  and  must  do  in 
plainer  words,  in  brighter  and  more  heav- 
enly words,  than  our  own  hearts  and  con- 
sciences ever  use  ?  What  Book  is  that 
which  good  people  love  and  honor  so  much 
as  having  come  down  to  us  out  of  heaven 
to  tell  us  about  God  and  what  he  wants 
us  to  do  ?  You  see  I  am  now  speaking 
of  the  BIBLE — of  God's  laws  in  the  Bible. 
The  Bible  is  a  law-book.  It  tells  us  what 
God  wants  us  to  do — what  he  says  we 


The  Laws  of  God.  113 

must  do — -what  he  says  we  must  do  or  be 
punished  severely.  If  we  do  what  it  says 
he  will  take  us  to  heaven,  that  most  beau- 
tiful of  all  places,  where  he  himself  lives ; 
if  not,  he  will  send  us  to  that  most 
wretched  of  all  places  where  live  the  evil 
angels. 

The  Bible  is  full  of  the  strongest  kind 
of  laws,  and  its  must  is  of  the  strong- 
est kind.  Some  of  its  laws  are  the  same 
that  conscience  gives  us,  but  many  of 
them  are  quite  new,  such  as  conscience 
says  nothing  about.  Thus,  it  says  that 
you  must  not  tell  untruths,  nor  steal,  nor 
disobey  your  parents,  nor  be  idle  and  mis- 
chievous and  quarrelsome  and  unthankful, 
just  as  your  own  hearts  do,  (only  the  tone 
and  the  words  are  much  stronger  and 
swifter,  and  the  must  a  great  deal  louder 
and  more  terrible,)  but  then  it  says  very 
much  more  than  this;  for  example,  that 
you  must  keep  one  day  in  the  week  holy, 
that  you  must  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  do  your  best  to  please  him,  and  pray 


114  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

to  God  in  his  name,  and  ask  pardon  of 
your  sins  for  his  sake,  and  do  many  other 
things  besides  which  your  own  hearts  tell 
you  nothing  about. 

The  first  kind  of  God's  laws  is  given 
to  all  things,  of  all  kinds,  in  all  places ; 
the  second  kind,  the  laws  of  conscience, 
are  given  only  to  things  that  have  souls, 
as  men  and  angels ;  this  third  kind  of 
which  we  have  just  been  speaking,  the 
laws  of  the  Bible,  are  as  yet  given  to 
a  still  smaller  number  of  men,  though 
God  means  that  sooner  or  later  it  shall  be 

» 

given  to  the  whole  world.  He  means  to 
have  it  done,  and  he  means  to  have  good 
people  do  it.  If  you  live  he  will  want 
you  to  help  by  giving  money  and  in  other 
ways.  To  be  sure  all  persons  all  over  the 
world  have  the  laws  of  conscience,  and, 
if  they  would,  they  could  get  along  with 
these,  and  get  to  heaven  at  last  without 
any  Bible-laws ;  but  they  ivill  not.  Peo- 
ple do  not  pay  much  attention  to  con- 
science where  they  have  no  Bible.  In  this 


The  Laius  of  God.  115 

world  Bible-laws  and  conscience-laws  work 
best  together.  And  then  the  Bible  is  the 
greater  light  of  the  two.  Have  you  not 
seen  a  little  candle,  not  much  larger  than 
your  finger,  the  wick  all  loaded  with  the 
black,  choking  snuff,  sending  out  so  poor 
a  light  that  hardly  any  thing  could  be 
seen  at  the  back  of  the  room  ?  Well,  this 
is  like  many  a  conscience.  But  the  Bible 
is  like  the  sun,  shining  brightly,  shining 
far,  flooding  all  things  with  light,  making 
the  waters  glisten  like  silver,  the  mount- 
ains burn,  the  valleys  smile,  and  all  things 
above  ground  through  half  the  world 
stand  out  to  view  in  beautiful  clearness. 
The  candle  is  very  useful  where  the  sun 
cannot  be  had — it  is  very  useful  even 
when  the  sun  is  shining  for  the  purpose 
of  going  down  into  cellars  and  searching 
out  dark  corners  ;  but  after  all,  you  know, 
the  sun  is  the  great  thing,  and  very  unfor- 
tunate is  the  man  who  has  to  do  without 
it.  So,  very  unfortunate  are  those  who 
have  no  sun-Bible  to  light  them — nothing 


116  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

but  a  candle-conscience,  which  indeed  is 
very  well  in  its  place,  but,  after  all,  is 
nothing  but  a  candle. 

Is  the  Bible  God's  glorious  book  of 
!aws  ?  Then  the  youngest  child  among 
you  can  see  how  it  ought  to  be  treated. 
Very  respectfully,  no  doubt,  more  so  than 
you  would  treat  the  greatest  man  in  the 
world  in  case  you  should  happen  to  meet 
him ;  very  studiously,  no  doubt,  more  so 
than  you  would  any  book  that  you  are  set 
to  learn  from  in  your  schools  or  that  wise 
men  have  written.  Is  it  strange  that  Sab- 
bath-schools should  be  started  to  teach  it 
to  you,  that  ministers  should  take  so  much 
pains  to  explain  and  preach  it  every  Sun- 
day, and  that  there  should  be  great  socie- 
ties kept  up  by  much  giving  and  working 
of  good  people  in  order  to  print  it  and 
send  it  cheaply  into  all  parts  of  the  world  ? 
There  is  not  another  such  book  anywhere. 
It  is  the  Book  of  books.  We  could  do 
without  all  other  books  better  than  we 
could  without  this.  You  have  sometimes 


The  Laws  of  God.  117 

seen  it  bound  in  beautiful  and  costly 
leather,  its  leaves  edged  with  gold,  and 
perhaps  pictured  bars  of  silver  or  gold 
fastening  up  the  delicate  white  leaves, 
and  did  you  never  think  that  never 
did  book  as  well  deserve  so  splendid  a 
dress,  and  that  the  grand  outside  is  but 
in  keeping  with  the  precious  and  heav- 
enly laws  found  within  ?  So  you  should 
think. 

I  have  but  one  other  kind  of  God's 
laws  to  speak  to  you  about.  These  are 
such  laws  as  those  who  live  in  heaven  get 
directly  from  God.  The  holy  dead  and 
the  angels  are  with  God.  They  see  him 
and  hear  him,  and  get  laws  directly  from 
his  own  lips.  With  his  own  voice  he  tells 
them  what  he  wants  them  to  do,  the  holy 
errands  on  which  he  wishes  them  to  fly, 
the  noble  things  he  would  have  them  do, 
far  or  near,  for  him,  for  people  in  this  and 
other  worlds,  for  themselves.  But  you 
ask,  Is  there  any  must  about  all  this,  any 
must  in  heaven  ?  How  can  one  be  per- 


118  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

fectly  happy  with  a  must  sounding  in  his 
ears  ?  Yes,  there  is  law  even  in  heaven. 
Every  angel  and  saint  there  knows  that  he 
cannot  stay  there  unless  he  keeps  good, 
and  keeps  doing  as  God  wishes  to  have 
him.  He  knows  that  the  first  thing  he 
should  do  contrary  to  God's  will  would 
drive  him  out  of  that  holy  place  as  swift 
as  the  lightning's  flash.  So  all  God's 
wishes  in  heaven  have  a  mighty  must  at 
the  end  of  them.  They  are,  in  fact,  God's 
laws,  as  I  have  said.  Now,  in  this  world, 
though  we  have  a  good  many  of  God's 
laws  and  several  kinds  of  them,  as  you 
have  seen,  yet  we  have  none  of  just  this 
kind.  God  now  never  deals  directly  with 
living  people,  however  good  they  may  be. 
They  never  see  him  nor  hear  him.  He 
never  even  sends  an  angel  or  a  word  of  his 
own  handwriting  to  them.  Once  it  was 
not  so.  A  great  while  ago  he  sometimes 
talked  with  a  man  face  to  face,  as  a  man 
talks  with  his  friend.  Twice  he  wrote  off 
some  laws  with  his  own  finger  on  two 


TJie  Laws  of  God.  119 

tables  of  stone,  and  sent  them  to  a  nation. 
Once  he  came  down  on  a  mountain  in 
thunders  and  lightnings  and  earthquakes, 
and,  with  an  awful  voice  that  made  people 
tremble  as  if  they  would  die,  spoke  all 
the  Ten  Commandments  to  millions  of 
people  at  once  in  one  great  congregation. 
Once  he  took  a  body  such  as  we  have  and 
a  voice  like  ours,  and  lived  among  men 
thirty-three  years,  teaching  them  and  com- 
manding them  with  his  own  lips  such 
things  as  he  wished  them  to  know  and 
do.  And  a  great  many,  many  times  he 
has  sent  angels  with  their  swift  snow-white 
wings  and  glorious  forms  and  faces  to  bring 
his  laws  to  men.  But  all  this  was  long 
ago.  He  never  does  such  things  now. 
The  only  laws  v/e  shall  ever  get  from  him 
as  long  as  we  live  will  be  natural  laws, 
conscience  laws,  and  Bible  laws ;  but  if  in 
this  world  we  try  honestly  to  go  according 
to  these  laws  and  trust  in  Christ,  in  the 
next  world  we  shall  huve  the  other  kind 
also  to  go  by.  There  are  millions  and 


120  SUKDAY  AFTEKNOONS. 

millions  of  children  now  in  heaven  who 
get  laws  from  God's  own  mouth,  and  you 
will  one  day  do  the  same  if  you  now  love 
and  serve  Christ  according  to  what  you 

O  */ 

know.  And  you  need  not  be  troubled 
about  that  must  •  that  will  belong  to  even 
these  higher  laws  of  heaven  as  it  does  to  all 
others  that  God  gives  us.  It  will  be  no 
trouble  to  you  should  you  ever  get  to 
heaven.  It  will  not  make  you  feel  as  if 
tied  up,  forced,  slaved.  But  you  will  feel 
glad  that  neither  you  nor  anybody  else 
will  be  allowed  to  turn  heaven  into  a 
wicked  place,  you  will  so  hate  all  sorts  of 
wickedness. 

Now  I  have  but  a  few  more  things  to 
say.  One  is,  that  all  these  laws,  of  what- 
ever kind,  that  God  gives,  whether  natural 
laws  or  conscience  laws  or  Bible  laws  or 
heaven  laws,  have  not  the  least  speck  of 
wrong  or  fault  about  them :  every  one  of 
them  is  beautifully  and  gloriously  wise 
and  good,  and  meant  to  do  us  good.  The 
laws  that  men  make  are  apt  to  have  much 


The  Laws  of  God.  121 

that  is  bad  about  them,  and  not  a  few  of 
them  are  all  badness  from  beginning  to 
end,  and  the  more  one  minds  them  the 
worse  off  he  is.  But  it  is  not  so  with  any 
of  God's  laws. 

Another  thing  I  wish  to  say  is,  that 
minding  one  kind  of  these  laws  will  help 
you  to  mind  all  the  rest.  Thus,  if  you 
mind  those  laws  which  I  first  told  you 
about,  called  natural  laws,  it  will  help  you 
to  do  what  your  consciences  bid  you  do ; 
and  if  you  mind  your  consciences  it  will 
help  you  to  do  what  your  Bibles  bid  you 
do ;  and  if  you  mind  your  Bibles  it  will 
help  you  to  do  what  God  will  bid  you  do 
in  heaven,  speaking  to  you  face  to  face. 
Indeed,  if  you  go  by  your  consciences  you 
are  sure  to  go  by  the  Bible,  and  if  you  go 
by  both  of  these  you  are  sure  at  last  to 
go  by  such  laws  as  they  have  in  heaven. 

The  last  thing  I  have  to  say  is,  that 
the  better  and  longer  you  go  according  to 
any  of  these  kinds  of  God's  laws  the  pleas- 
anter  you  will  find  it  and  the  better  you 


122  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

will  be.  It  is  not  so  with  many  laws  I 
could  tell  you  of.  It  is  not  so  with  many 
of  the  laws  that  men  make.  Above  all, 
it  is  not  so  with  any  of  the  laws  that  Sa- 
tan, your  great  enemy  and  mine,  makes. 
The  more  you  do  as  he  wants  to  have  you 
the  more  dissatisfied  and  the  worse  you 
will  be.  You  will  be  the  most  wretched 
and  the  most  wicked  when  you  obey  him 
the  most.  If  you  want  to  be  perfectly 
wretched  and  perfectly  wicked  you  have 
only  to  obey  him  perfectly.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  you  would  be  perfectly  happy 
and  perfectly  good  you  have  only  to  obey 
God,  your  great  Friend  and  Father,  per- 
fectly. Which  will  you  try  to  do  ?  A 
great  many  children  are  just  now  making 
wise  answer  to  this  question,  and  are  set- 
ting out  toward  heaven.  I  hope  you  will 
be  sure  to  join  this  bright  army.  They 
are  bright  and  fair  now  as  their  feet  pat- 
ter on,  and  their  fresh  young  faces  look 
up  toward  the  glory  that  streams  down 
from  the  heavenly  hills;  but  the  bright 


The  Laws  of  God.  123 

faces  will  be  brighter  by  and  by,  when 
they  get  nearer  the  glory.  At  last  they 
will  go  in  at  the  dazzling  gates  of 
the  city  whose  streets  are  paved  with 
gold.  May  every  one  of  you  be  among 
them! 


124  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 


VI. 

THE   WORD   OF  GOD. 

I   LATELY   told   you   of  God's   laws, 
which  God  has  given  his  creatures  to 
tell  them  what  they  must  do.     I  then 
said  that  these  laws  are  found  most  plainly 
and  fully  in  the  book  we  call  the  Bible. 

The  word  Bible  means  book.  This  book 
is  so  called  because  it  is  the  Book,  the 
Book  of  books,  the  best  book  in  the  world. 
And  I  hope  that  you  will  feel  that  it  is 
really  all  this  when  I  have  finished  telling 
you  certain  things  about  it. 

The  first  of  these  things  is  that  God 
made  the  Bible.  Men  make  the  paper  on 
which  it  is  printed,  men  do  the  printing 
and  binding,  men  carry  it  all  around  the 
world  to  sell  or  give  away ;  but  the 
thoughts  in  the  Bible,  and  the  way  these 
thoughts  are  put  together,  and  the  words 


The  Word  of  God.  125 

which  carry  them,  all  came  first  from  God. 
He  told  holy  men  what  to  write  and  how 
to  write  it — sometimes  by  a  great  voice 
mid  thunders   and  lightnings,  sometimes 
by  angels,  and  sometimes  as  by  whispers 
to  the  thoughts.     Aiid   they  wrote  just 
what  he  wanted  to  have  written,  in  just 
the  way  he  wanted  it  written.     But  peo- 
ple must  have  something  to  show  that  it 
was  so,  and   so  God  gave   these  writers 
power  to  work  miracles  and  speak  prophe- 
cies.    They  cured  sick  people  by  a  word, 
divided  rivers,  put   storms  to  rest,  called 
down  fire  from  heaven,  raised  the  dead. 
Of  course  reasonable  men  who  saw  such 
things  done  could  not  well  help  believing. 
And  they  copied  and  spread  the  writings 
they  believed  in,  and  at  last  printed,  and 
bound,    and    carried    them    about    every- 
where in  all  sorts  of  languages.     So  you 
see  that  while  men  have  had  much  to  do 
with  the  Bible,  what  is  in  the  Bible  came 
truly  from  God.     It  is  just  as  if  he  had 
spoken  all  of  it  with  his  own  voice.     It  is 


126  SUNDAY  AFTEKNOONS. 

just  as  if  he  had  written  all  of  it  with 
his  own  hand.  It  is  just  as  if  some  day 
the  nations  had  seen  a  brightness  in  the 
sky  coming  nearer  and  nearer.  At  last 
they  saw  it  was  a  glorious  hand  holding  a 
book,  and  when  it  was  come  nigh  and 
some  man  bolder  than  the  rest  ventured 
to  put  out  his  hand  and  take  it  from  the 
air  where  it  sparkled  and  flashed,  he  found 
it  to  be  the  Bible.  Would  he  not  call  it 
God's  Book  ?  Would  he  not  say  that  God 
made  it  and  brought  it  to  us  ?  Most  cer- 
tainly. And  yet  the  book  would  not  be 
more  heavenly  and  divine  than  it  now  is. 
God  made  the  Bible,  and  it  is  the  only 
book  he  ever  made.  Some  other  books 
pretend  to  be  his,  but  it  is  only  a  pretense. 
You  would  only  have  to  read  them  a  little 
to  see  plainly  that  they  never  could  have 
come  from  such  a  being  as  God,  they  have 
so  many  foolish,  untrue,  and  bad  things  in 
them.  So  the  Bible  stands  alone.  It  is 
an  only  child.  It  has  no  brother  or  sis- 
ter among  books.  God  has  never  given 


The  Word  of  God.  127 

any  other  volume.  He  never  will  give 
any  other,  though  the  world  should  last  a 
million  of  years.  However  large  our  li- 
braries may  get  to  be,  and  however  beau- 
tiful and  costly  and  famous  some  of  the 
books  that  will  be  found  in  them,  not  one 
of  them  will  deserve  to  be  called  divine — 
unless  the  Bible  be  among  them.  If  this 
be  among  them,  though  but  an  old  and 
rude  and  battered  copy,  it  is  worth  vastly 
more  than  all  the  rest  of  the  volumes  on 
those  long  and  loaded  shelves.  They  are 
the  works  of  men — of  the  men  we  call 
Plato,  Cicero,  Locke,  Milton,  and  so  on — 
but  this  is  the  only  book  in  the  wide 
world  of  which  God  is  the  author. 

There  is  but  one  divine  book,  but  this 
one  contains  a  great  deal.  It  has  histories, 
biographies,  poems,  proverbs,  parables, 
letters,  philosophies,  prophecies.  As  you 
have  already  been  told,  it  contains  the  laws 
of  God's  empire,  with  many  helps  toward 
understanding  and  using  them.  Besides 
these,  it  has  what  is  called  the  Gospel — 


128  SUNDAY  AFTEKISTOONS. 

an  account  of  the  way  in  which  people 
who  have  broken  these  laws  may  be  for- 
given and  made  better,  and  at  last  brought 
to  heaven.  That  we  may  better  understand 
and  use  the  Law  and  Gospel  many  nar- 
ratives are  given  us.  We  are  told  of  the 
creation  of  the  world,  of  our  first  parents 
and  how  they  fell  into  sin,  and  of  many 
early  ages  of  which  we  have  no  other  his- 
tory. We  are  made  to  see  how  patriarchs, 
saints,  kings,  and  nations  lived,  age  after 
age — how  God  dealt  with  them — and  so 
are  made  to  see  what  sort  of  beings  men 
are,  what  God  is,  and  how  he  governs  the 
world.  Sometimes  he  sends  angels  down, 
sometimes  he  teaches  and  warns  men  in 
dreams,  sometimes  prophets  and  holy 
men  are  made  to  do  great  wonders  in  his 
name,  that  the  good  may  be  helped  and 
the  bad  punished,  and  all  men  know  that 
there  is  a  God  to  be  feared — and  to  be 
loved  also,  for  see  what  a  melting  story  is 
told  in  the  New  Testament  of  how  God 
so  loved  us  as  to  give  his  Son  to  die  for 


The  Word  of  God.  129 

us.  What  a  holy  life  that  Saviour  lived, 
what  wise  and  helpful  words  he  spoke, 
what  wonderful  things  he  did,  how  sadly 
he  was  treated,  and  how  cruelly  at  last 
men  nailed  him  to  a  cross  and  left  him 
there  in  agony  and  blood  till  he  was  dead 
— all  that  sinners  might  be  saved  from  sin 
and  ruin  !  Then  follows  the  story  of  those 
who  loved  him  and  undertook  to  tell  the 
world  about  him,  and  to  persuade  men  to 
love  and  serve  him — what  they  suffered, 
what  they  did,  what  they  said,  and  what 
success  they  had  and  will  have  in  the 
world — all  told  in  many  chapters  and 
books.  Scattered  largely  through  and 
among  these  books  is  knowledge  for  the 
ignorant,  strength  for  the  weak,  succor  for 
the  tempted,  songs  for  the  devout,  maxims 
for  living,  consolations  for  dying,  truth  and 
holy  motives,  and  "  powers  of  the  world 
to  come  "  for  all  men. 

There  is  in  Paris  a  famous  museum  and 
picture  gallery.  They  call  it  the  Louvre. 
There  one  sees,  among  other  valuable 


130  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

things  and  old  things,  what  is  by  far  the 
oldest  of  all.  What  is  it  ?  You  would, 
perhaps,  think  it  a  painted  stick  with 
something  of  ornament  about  it,  but  you 
would  be  told  that  it  is  the  gold  scepter 
of  Charlemagne,  one  of  the  most  ancient  of 
French  monarchs.  It  is  about  a  thousand 
years  old.  You  would  have  to  go  back 
through  fathers  and  grandfathers  some 
thirty  lives  before  you  would  come  to 
the  time  when  that  scepter  was  new. 
You  think  of  all  that  has  happened  in 
that  long  time,  and  which  that  golden  rod 
could  have  seen  had  it  been  a  living  thing, 
and  you  almost  look  on  it  with  awe,  it  is 
so  old.  Yes,  but  you  know  of  another 
scepter  older  still.  It  is  not  made  of  gold 
and  jewels — it  is  not  in  the  shape  of  a 
knotty  rod — it  is  in  the  form  of  a  book,  but 
not  less  a  scepter  for  that,  for  it  means 
just  what  scepter  means,  namely,  royal 
government,  the  Government  of  God. 
The  Bible  is  the  oldest  scepter  in  the 
world,  the  oldest  of  sceptered  books. 


The  Word  of  God.  131 

I  have  among  my  books  some  that  are 
very  old,  and  that  have  long  been  ruling 
the  world  like  kings.  They  were  written 
hundreds,  and  a  few  of  them  thousands, 
of  years  ago.  But  by  far  the  oldest  book 
I  have  is  the  Bible.  On  opening  it  at 
the  title-page  you  might  find  that  it  was 
printed  only  ten  years  since,  and  the  cover 
is  fresh  and  the  leaves  are  still  delicately 
white,  but  for  all  that  it  is  not  only  the 
oldest  book  I  have,  but  the  oldest  anybody 
has.  I  mean  that  its  thoughts  were  writ- 
ten out  a  long,  long  time  ago,  and  that  the 
earliest  of  them  were  written  long  before 
those  of  any  other  book  in  the  world.  It 
is  the  patriarch  of  books.  It  goes  back  to 
the  time  when  mankind  itself  was  hardly 
more  than  a  little  child.  Since  it  was 
written  walls  and  towers  of  solid  rock 
have  given  way,  cities  have  risen  and  pros- 
pered and  perished.  Empires  have  been 
set  up,  made  famous,  had  long  histories, 
and  passed  completely  away.  Generation 
after  generation,  wave  upon  wave,  has 


132  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

beat  and  broken  on  the  shore.  But  the 
Bible,  that  began  before  them  all,  has 
outlived  them  all.  What  a  Methusaleh  ! 
It  is  antiquity  itself.  The  man  who  goes 
about  searching  for  old  and  venerable 
things,  relics  of  distant  times,  things  that 
were  old  when  America  and  even  Europe 
were  young,  has  not  far  to  go  for  his  best 
treasure.  Let  him  lay  hold  of  the  first 
Bible  that  comes  to  hand. 

There  was  a  time  when  there  was  only 
one  copy  of  the  Bible ;  but  it  was  too  im- 
portant a  book  to  remain  but  one,  so  men 
took  to  copying  it  off  painfully  by  hand- 
writing, and  often  the  pages  were  most 
beautifully  written  and  pictured  by  their 
industrious  pens.  So  Bibles  became  many. 
Still  they  were  not  many  enough  for  the 
many  people  in  many  lands,  and  often  a 
Bible  was  chained  in  a  church  or  some 
other  public  place,  so  that  persons  who 
had  none  of  their  own  might  go  there  and 
read  it  or  hear  it  read.  But  after  a  long 
while  men  found  out  how  to  print  with 


The  Word  of  God.  133 

types,  and  then  Bibles  became  less  costly 
and  very  numerous ;  and  now  there  is  no 
book  in  the  world  which  is  so  largely 
scattered  every-where.  Millions  on  mill- 
ions are  printed  every  year.  It  has  been 
printed  in  more  than  a  hundred  languages. 
No  country  of  any  size  where  it  is  not 
found.  In  such  countries  as  ours  no  book 
is  so  common — almost  every  person  has 
one  or  more  copies.  Taking  the  world 
through,  there  is  no  other  book,  however 
much  liked,  that  has  a  tenth  part  of  its 
readers.  Gather  the  copies  together  from 
every  land  and  they  would  make  mount- 
ains and  load  fleets.  It  is  in  the  libraries 
of  scholars,  the  parlors  of  the  rich,  and  the 
kitchens  of  the  poor.  It  has  become  so 
cheap  that  the  poorest  can  buy  it :  if  one 
will  not  buy  it  he  can  have  it  for  nothing, 
for  nothing  and  welcome.  If  he  will  not 
even  take  it  as  a  gift  in  the  book  form  he 
must  still  have  it  in  some  form.  The 
words,  written  or  spoken,  fill  all  the  air. 
They  are  flying  about  in  all  directions  like 


134  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

so  many  pictured  birds,  their  throats  filled 
with  song.  Spoken  by  ministers,  taught 
in  Sunday-schools,  quoted  in  books  and 
newspapers,  sworn  by  the  profane,  praised 
by  friends,  abused  by  enemies — its  sacred 
truths  enter  every  man  whether  he  will  or 
not.  The  doors  and  windows  of  his  soul  can- 
not be  shut  close  enough  to  shut  them  out. 
At  eye  and  ear  they  lie  in  wait  from 
morning  to  night,  and  almost  from  night 
to  morning,  to  find  some  chance  for  enter- 
ing. They  are  already  within,  and  are 
hiding  in  every  corner  of  the  memory, 
waiting  with  keen  eyes  for  a  fit  time  to 
rush  forth  and  occupy  all  the  chambers  of 
the  soul.  It  is  well.  God's  Book  needs 
to  come  down  among  men  as  come  the 
star-showers  in  November ;  nay,  as  come 
the  showers  of  rain  which  manage  to  touch 
every  blade  of  grass  and  wash  every  tree- 
leaf  in  the  whole  country — thickly,  thickly. 
Every  human  being  surely  needs  a  copy 
of  the  Bible  which  he  can  read  and  study 
by  himself,  far  more  than  the  night  needs 


The  Word  of  God.  135 

stars  or  the  dry  earth  needs  rain,  and  good 
men  mean  that  the  time  shall  come  when 
every  one  shall  have  it.  But  even  now 
the  Bible  is  the  most  widely  circulated  of 
all  books. 

And  it  is  the  truest  of  books.  It  is 
perfectly  true  from  beginning  to  end,  not 
a  single  falsehood  or  mistake  in  all  its 
thousand  pages — a  thing  that  cannot  be 
said  of  any  other  book  that  ever  was 
written.  I  once  thought,  as  perhaps  some 
of  you  may  now  think,  that  what  is 
printed  must  of  course  be  true,  but  that, 
I  assure  you,  was  a  very  considerable  time 
ago.  I  soon  learned  that  the  very  wisest 
and  best  book  that  man  ever  made  has  a 
great  many  false  things  in  it,  meant  or 
not  meant,  and  that  some  books  are  false 
almost  from  beginning  to  end.  Now  the 
Bible  is  very  different  from  any  of  these, 
as  you  would  suppose  from  the  fact  that 
God  is  the  author  of  it.  As  it  came  from 
his  hands  there  was  not  the  smallest  un- 
true thing  in  it,  from  the  first  page  to  the 


136  SUNDAY  AFTEKISTOONS. 

last.  God  has  made  no  mistake  in  any  of 
his  writings,  and  far  be  it  from  us  to  think 
that  he  means  to  deceive  anybody.  He  is 
too  wise  to  do  the  one  thing,  and  too  good 
to  do  the  other.  The  Bible  is  like  a  clear, 
still  spring  of  water.  If  you  look  into  it 
you  see  yourselves,  the  overhanging  branch, 
and  the  blue  sky,  just  as  they  really  are. 
So  by  looking  into  the  Bible  we  see  every 
thing  just  as  it  is.  There  is  no  crack  in 
the  looking-glass :  the  pictures  in  it  look 
precisely  like  the  things  they  stand  for. 
So  you  must  not  fail  to  believe  every  thing 
the  true  Bible  says.  Whoever  dares  to 
say,  "  It  is  not  so,"  does  not  mind  what  he 
says — God's  Book  is  right  and  true  against 
all  the  world.  It  is  safe  to  venture  our 
lives,  and  even  our  souls,  on  what  it  says. 
I  would  not  care  to  venture  such  things 
on  even  some  mathematical  books  I  have 
seen.  But  the  Bible  is  a  great  deal  truer 
than  any  science  or  mathematics  that  ever 
men  put  together. 

Another  and  still  better  thing  which  I 


The  Word  of  God.  137 

wish  to  tell  you  about  the  Bible  is,  that  it 
is  the  purest  and  holiest  of  books.  True 
books  may  be  bad.  Some  real  things  are 
just  as  vile  and  corrupting  as  they  can 
be.  Satan  himself  is  a  fact,  and  what  a 
dreadful  and  wicked  fact  he  is  !  So  I  want 
to  tell  you  that,  in  addition  to  all  in  the 
Bible  being  true,  all  in  it  is  pure  and 
holy.  Not  the  least  evil  thing  in  it.  It 
gives  no  bad  advice,  no  bad  laws.  It  en- 
courages no  wrong  feelings  nor  thoughts, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  discourages  them. 
The  histories  it  tells,  the  songs  it  sings, 
the  letters  it  sends  to  us,  are  such  that  the 
more  we  read  them  the  better  we  are  likely 
to  be. 

The  whitest  leaf  of  your  newest  book 
is  not  so  clear  and  white  as  are  all  the 
truths  this  holy  Book  teaches.  We  call  it 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  it  is  a  true  name. 
If  we  should  do  just  as  it  tells  us.  our 
hearts  and  lives  would  be  as  clean  and 
white  as  the  newest  snow.  Of  course  I 
do  not  deny  that  there  are  other  books  in 


138  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

the  world  that  deserve  to  be  called  good, 
very  good,  too ;  but  not  one  of  them  is 
good  like  the  Bible.  Do  you  suppose 
there  is  any  book  besides  this  that  has  not 
some  spot  of  sin  about  it  ?  I  tell  you, 
No  !  No  sinning  man  ever  made  a  sinless 
book.  No  muddy  spring  ever  sent  out 
water  clear  as  crystal.  There  is  always 
something  evil  in  the  book  to  show  what 
sort  of  a  person  it  came  from.  And  often 
the  book  is  so  bad  that  one  does  not  want 
even  to  touch  it  with  his  finder.  We  look 

O 

at  it  with  loathing.  We  put  it  into  the 
fire  with  the  tongs.  Nothing  short  of  fire 
will  clean  and  sweeten  it.  It  does  us  good 
to  see  it  vanish  in  flame  and  smoke. 
Lately,  tons  of  such  books  have  been  de- 
stroyed in  our  cities  by  the  magistrates, 
and  tons  more  remain  to  be  destroyed. 
Heap  up  the  fuel,  kindle  it  in  a  hundred 
places  at  once,  loud  let  the  fires  roar — • 
they  never  had  a  better  work  to  do,  these 
books  are  so  unclean.  But  that  Book  that 
comes  from  God  is  like  God — purest  and 


The  Word  of  God.  139 

holiest  of  books,  as  God  is  the  purest  and 
holiest  of  beings. 

Some  of  you  may  wonder  to  hear  a 
book  called  strong  and  mighty.  You  have 
heard  of  mighty  men,  and  the  mighty 
ocean,  and  a  mighty  wind  ;  but  then  these 
things  are  either  very  large  things  or  they 
can  do  wonderful  things.  The  Bible  is 
not  large ;  even  a  little  child  can  carry  it 
about.  It  has  no  strong  arms  with  which 
to  lift  and  to  smite.  No,  but  for  all  that 
the  Bible  is  mighty.  It  can  do  great  and 
wonderful  things.  It  has  done  them.  It 
has  made  proud  men  humble.  It  has 
made  angry  men  calm  and  gentle.  Swear- 
ing men,  stealing  men,  lying  men,  selfish 
men,  hating  and  murdering  men,  it  has 
made  over  into  quite  new  persons,  teach- 
ing them  to  dread  and  hate  their  old  sins 
as  so  much  new  poison.  Untold  times  it 
has  done  that  hardest  of  all  things,  mak- 
ing the  wicked  good.  In  this  way  it  has 
before  now  defeated  armies,  made  and  un- 
made empires,  saved  nations  from  ruin, 


140  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

and  made  them  good,  happy,  and  great. 
This  is  great  doing.  It  is  what  no  other 
book  ever  did  or  can  do.  No  other  book 
ever  changed  men's  characters,  and  made 
wicked  hearts  holy,  and  washed  vile  lives 
clean.  You  can  wash  clean  the  outside  of 
cups  and  platters — when  our  garments  get 
black  with  wearing,  much  soap  and  much 
rubbing  will  make  them  white  again. 
But  such  things  as  wicked  hearts  and  lives 
defy  all  human  washing.  God  has  to  step 
in  with  his  great  power.  And  this  power 
he  has  hid  in  his  own  book.  Here  is 
water  and  soap  and  fire  for  the  unclean 
souls  of  men.  It  never  gets  soiled  itself 
in  cleansing  others.  Have  you  never 
heard  that  it  is  "  the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation  ? "  Of  course  it  is  mightier 
than  even  the  power  of  Satan — which 
some  books  are.  They  are  so  vile  and 
mischievous,  it  seems  as  if  Satan  were  in 
them.  And  he  is.  They  are  Satan  in  the 
book  form.  But  the  Bible  is  mightier 
than  they,  as  God's  power  is  mightier 


The  Word  of  God.  141 

than  Satan's.  So  the  Bible  will  at  last 
overcome  all  the  books  written  against  it, 
just  as  a  great  warrior,  after  standing  up 
calmly  for  awhile  amid  the  strokes  and 
thrusts  of  his  puny  enemies,  as  if  to  allow 
them  to  do  their  worst,  at  last  lifts  him- 
self to  his  fall  stature,  and  whirls  among 
their  ranks  his  glittering  sword,  and  at 
once  wins  the  field  without  a  dent  in  his 
armor  or  loss  of  a  feather  from  his  plume 
— so  will  the  Bible  prove  itself  the  might- 
iest of  books. 

It  is  the  most  useful  of  books.  Is  the 
light  useful,  without  which  we  cannot  see 
or  be  warm  or  be  healthy?  Is  the  air 
useful,  without  which  we  cannot  breathe? 
Is  it  useful  to  be  true  and  pure  and  kind 
and  just  and  unselfish  and  loving  and  gen- 
erous and  noble  and  good  ?  Is  it  useful 
to  be  everlastingly  saved  and  happy  in 
heaven  ?  Then  is  the  Bible  useful — the 
most  useful  book  the  world  has  ev 
known — for  it  does  more  to  make  * 
what  they  should  be  than  any  anc 


142  SUNDAY  AFTEKNOONS. 

other  books.  Put  all  others  in  one  scale 
and  the  Bible  in  the  other,  the  Bible  would 
weigh  them  all  down.  I  mean  that  the 
Bible  is  ivorth  more  to  the  world  than  all 
other  books  put  together,  however  good 
and  famous  they  may  be.  The  world 
could  get  along  better  without  them  than 
without  it.  Men  could  not  get  along 
without  the  Bible  at  all.  By  it  they  learn 
the  will  of  Grod.  By  it  they  are  mightily 
persuaded  to  do  that  will.  It  shows  them 
heaven,  and  how  to  gain  it — hell,  and  how 
to  shun  it.  It  holds  men  back  from  folly 
and  crime,  .and  pushes  them  toward  wis- 
dom and  goodness  as  with  the  hand  of  a 
giant.  It  shows  men  how  to  live  and  how 
to  die.  No  such  comforter  as  the  Bible  ! 
When  afflicted  people  can  find  no  comfort 
and  strength  anywhere  else  they  can  find 
it  here.  Death  itself  can  be  made  to 
smile  and  seem  the  best  of  friends  by  list- 
ing to  its  courageous  words.  It  has 
•yj  the  world  the  best  knowledge,  the 
ftomes,  the  best  society,  the  best  gov- 


The  Word  of  God.  143 

ernraents,  the  best  characters  and  hopes 
and  prospects  it  has.     Take  away  it  and 
that  Holy  Spirit  who  goes  with  it,  and  the 
earth    would  soon  become   too  bad    and 
miserable  to  be  lived  in.     It  stands  up  for 
all  true  and  right  things  like  a  mighty 
champion,  and  if  people  would  only  let  it 
have  its  way  it  would   soon  make  these 
earthly   deserts    almost   as    delightful    as 
heaven.     This  is  what  we  are  expecting  it 
will  do.     This  is  what  it  is  aiming  to  do. 
And  by  and  by  it  will  succeed  gloriously. 
We  do  not  know  exactly  when,  but  that 
the  time  will  come,  sooner  or  later,  is  a 
sure  matter.     Some  think  they  see  signs 
of  its  coming  even  now.     Just  as  a  certain 
look  of  the  sky  shows  that  the   fruitful 
shower    is   at    hand — just   as    the   ruddy 
streak   gives  token   of  the  near  day — so 
what  the  Bible   is  now  doing   more  and 
more  every  year  to  bless  and   save   men 
gives  sign  of  a  great  future.     And  when 
that  great  future  is  come,  and  all  the  earth 
is  swimming  in  the  golden  light  which  the 


144  SUNDAY  AFTEENOONS. 

Bible  has  poured,  no  one  will  dare  to  ask 
or  answer  such  an  absurd  question  as,  "  Is 
the  Bible  the  most  useful  of  books  ? " 
Yesterday  the  name  of  the  Bible  was 
Straggle,  to-day  it  is  Success,  to-morrow  it 
will  be  Triumph.  And  if  all  the  good  it 
has  done,  is  doing,  and  will  do  could  be 
brought  together,  it  would  make  mountains 
greater  than  the  Alps,  landscapes  fairer 
than  Moses  saw  from  Pisgah.  skies  brighter 
than  bend  over  Chaldean  shepherds.  The 
Bible  is  worth  its  weight,  we  will  not  say 
in  gold,  but  in  souls. 

Looking  back,  we  find  no  book  so  old 
as  the  Bible ;  looking  forward,  we  find 
none  so  sure  never  to  perish  or  get  out  of 
date.  It  has  already  outlasted  generations 
and  empires — it  is  sure  to  outlast  all  gen- 
erations and  empires  yet  to  come.  Of  no 
other  book  can  this  be  said.  When  you 
hear  some  other  book,  say  the  poems  of 
Milton,  called  immortal,  and  the  newspa- 
pers saying  over  and  over  that  it  will 
never  die,  you  may  venture  to  say  that  it 


The  Word  of  God.  145 

is  by  no  means  sure  to  live  a  hundred 
years  more.  Good  books  and  great  books 
have  been  lost  before  now.  Nothing  but 
their  names  have  come  down  to  us — some- 
times not  even  so  much.  The  last  copy 
was  burned  in  some  great  fire.  Wars  and 
troublous  times  came  and  swept  them  into 
dark  corners  and  closets,  never  to  be  found 
more.  What  has  happened  may  happen 
again.  I  should  be  afraid  to  say  of  any 
book  you  could  bring  me,  save  one,  how- 
ever famous  it  may  now  be  and  however 
many  copies  of  it  may  be  scattered  through 
the  world,  that  it  will  last  a  thousand 
years.  It  may  not  last  ten.  But  there  is 
one  book  that  will  never  get  trampled  to 
pieces  under  the  hoofs  of  stormy  times — 
one  book  which  no  neglect  nor  violence 
nor  craft  will  be  able  to  put  an  end  to.  It 
has  been  tried.  Many  Bibles  have  been 
set  a  burning.  Many  have  been  buried  in 
dungeons  and  dead  languages,  and  bidden 
to  lie  there  and  never  rise  more.  The 

book  has  had  many  enemies,  and  they  have 
10 


146  SUTSTDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

i 

done  their  best  to  kill  it  with  jesting  and 
scoffing  and  arguing  and  persecuting.  But 
it  could  not  be  killed.  It  has  shown  no 
faculty  for  dying.  It  never  had  more 
breath  in  it  than  it  has  to-day.  Never  was 
it  so  famous  and,  on  the  whole,  so  power- 
ful. It  is  quite  safe  to  say  that  neither  the 
Bible  nor  any  part  will  ever  perish.  Sin- 
gle copies  of  it  may  be  destroyed — people 
may  tear  up  or  burn  up  the  covers,  the 
leaves,  so  that  not  a  single  printed  word 
of  it  shall  remain.  What  is  to  hinder  ? 
The  Bible  will  burn  like  other  books. 
Of  course  paper  will  kindle,  and  flame, 
and  turn  to  smoke  and  ashes.  But  other 
copies  will  be  left.  Faithful  souls  here 
and  there  will  keep  the  seed  safe  all  over 
the  world.  God  will  always  have  an  ark 
to  carry  it  safely  through  every  deluge. 
It  will  last  as  long  as  the  world  does.  It 
was  made  to  last  forever,  and  it  will.  It 
has  an  iron  constitution.  And  when  the 
last  day  comes,  and  the  world  is  set  ablaze, 
and  the  trees  and  houses  and  books,  and 


The  Word  of  God.  147 

even  rocks  and  waters,  catch  like  tinder, 
and  good  men  go  up  in  fiery  chariots  to 
heaven,  then  the  Bible  unhurt  will  go  up 
with  it  and  be  studied  and  honored  for- 
ever. Immortal  Book,  undying  as  the 
men  it  enlightens  and  saves  ! 

Most  books  soon  cease  to  be  useful  if 
they  do  not  cease  to  exist.  Circumstances 
alter.  The  times  get  beyond  them.  Once 
they  answered  a  purpose,  but  now  they 
are  good  for  nothing.  When  a  book  be- 
comes good  for  nothing  it  ought  to  be 
called  dead,  and  dead  most  books  become 
very  soon  after  they  are  printed.  Noth- 
ing more  can  be  got  out  of  them.  If  a 
man  reads  them  the  second  time  he  loses 
his  time.  They  will  count  in  a  catalogue, 
and,  with  a  fair  binding,  will  make  a  fair 
show  on  the  shelves  of  a  library — that  is 
all.  But  the  Bible  is  not  like  such  books. 
It  never  gets  out  of  date.  It  suits  one 
time  as  well  as  another.  The  more  one 
reads  it  the  more  he  finds  in  it.  It  is  like 
those  gold  mines  which  grow  richer  the 


148  SUNDAY  AFTEKBTOONS. 

deeper  one  digs.  Lasting,  inexhaustible 
mines  we  call  them.  Instead  of  becoming 
waste  places,  silent,  deserted,  littered  with 
the  broken  tools  and  wastage  of  other 
days,  the  roar  of  cheerful  labor  deepens 
around  them  from  age  to  age. 

In  short,  the  Bible  is  a  perfect  book. 
No  fault  can  reasonably  be  found  with  it. 
It  is  just  what  the  world  needs  to  have  in 
a  book  from  God.  It  has  the  best  possi- 
ble object  in  view,  and  it  is  as  well  suited 
to  gain  its  object  as  book  can  possibly  be. 
Were  one  to  add  any  thing  to  it  he  would 
harm  it — were  one  to  take  away  any  thing 
from  it  he  would  harm  it.  So  if  one  should 
make  this  and  that  chapter,  this  and  that 
verse,  change  places.  Hence  we  are  threat- 
ened with  a  great  punishment  if  we  try  to 
alter  the  book  in  any  way  whatever.  It 
is  because  the  Bible  is  just  right  as  it  is. 
Of  course  it  must  be,  coming  as  it  does 
from  God.  Other  books  come  from  im- 
perfect men,  and  it  would  be  foolish  to 
expect  a  single  one  of  them  to  be  without 


The  Ward  of  God.  149 

fault.  But  this  book  comes  from  a  perfect 
Being,  and  it  would  be  equally  foolish  to 
expect  in  it  any  fault  whatever.  It  has 
none — no  scar,  no  wrinkle,  no  such  thing. 
Just  the  book  to  come  down  from  heaven 
— just  the  book  for  God  to  give.  Of  what 
other  book  can  as  much  be  said  ?  I  never 
saw  any,  never  expect  to  see  any.  I  have 
passed  through  many  great  libraries.  Hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  volumes  stood  on 
the  right  hand  and  on  the  left,  many  of 
them  in  costly  bindings  and  famous  the 
world  over,  but  I  knew  that  not  one  of 
them  was  a  perfect  book.  That  glorious 
poem — every  body  knows  it  has  its  blem- 
ishes. The  same  of  that  best  book  of 
travels,  of  that  best  book  of  fiction,  of 
that  best  book  of  science.  We  have  but 
to  look  sharply,  and  lo  !  something  that 
might  be  bettered.  Lo  !  things  here  that 
should  be  added  and  things  there  that 
should  be  subtracted.  Really,  it  is  only  a 
piece  of  a  book.  Really,  it  is  a  body 
without  a  hand  or  a  foot,  perhaps  even 


150  SUISDAY  AiTEEisrooisrs. 

without  a  head.  It  was  to  have  been  ex- 
pected. A  man  who  thinks  that  such  mis- 
taken and  sinful  half-beings  as  men  can 
make  any  other  than  half-books  is  very  poor 
at  thinking.  But  the  Bible  is  no  cripple, 
no  sick  man.  No  miracle  need  be  wrought 
on  it  to  give  it  perfect  soundness.  The 
rose  joins  with  the  lily  in  its  cheek.  Every 
rounded  limb  is  there  in  just  the  right 
proportion.  There  is  no  weakness  in  its 
strength,  no  slowness  in  its  swiftness,  no 
homeliness  in  its  beauty,  no  sickness  in 
its  health.  In  short,  it  is  a  perfect  book. 

We  love  persons — O,  how  dearly  some- 
times !  Your  fathers  and  mothers  love 
you  so  much  that  they  could  die  for  you. 
Almost  any  of  them  would  do  for  you  as 
did  the  freezing  mother  for  her  infant — 
taking  the  shawl  from  her  own  shoulders 
and  wrapping  it  round  the  child  that  it 
might  be  found  in  the  morning  warm  and 
living,  and  herself  cold,  stiff,  dead.  After 
this  manner  your  mothers  love  you,  and  it 
is  to  be  hoped  that  you  know  what  it  is 


The  Word  of  God.  151 

to  love  them  back  again.  Something  of 
the  same  tenderness  is  often  felt  toward 
things  that  are  not  persons ;  for  example, 
toward  pictures  of  dead  or  absent  friends, 
or  books  which  they  have  left  as  keep- 
sakes. Some  people  love  some  books 
almost  as  dearly  as  if  the  lifeless  things 
had  hearts  with  which  to  give  love  in  re- 
turn, especially  people  who  make  it  their 
business  to  read  and  study.  Such  often 
get  so  strongly  attached  to  the  favorite 
histories,  or  poems,  or  books  of  science — 
perhaps  to  the  best  books  of  all  these 
sorts — that  it  is  hard  to  be  away  from 
them  for  a  single  day.  But  let  me  tell 
you  that  no  book  has  ever  been  loved  like 
the  Bible — not  by  all  people.  Some  have 
even  hated  it,  and  would  have  been  glad 
to  burn  up  every  copy  of  it  in  the  world. 
But  greatly  loved  is  it  by  good  people  of 
the  best  sort.  Some  have  loved  it  so 
much  that  they  would  rather  part  with 
any  thing  else  than  with  it.  They  have 
tenderly  pressed  it  to  their  lips  and  bosoms 


152  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

in  feeble  token  of  how  precious  their 
hearts  felt  it  to  be.  Rather  than  give  it 
up  they  have  given  up  all  other  property, 
and  even  life  itself — dying  by  prisons,  by 
fire,  and  by  sword.  "  Bring  me  the  Book," 
said  a  dying  man  who  had  written  many 
famous  books  himself.  "  What  book  ?  " 
said  his  son.  "  There  is  but  one  Book," 
was  the  feeble  answer.  It  was  the  Bible 
that  dying  man  wanted.  No  other  book 
did  he  care  for  then.  What  Sir  Walter 
Scott  felt  just  as  he  was  leaving  the  world 
others  have  felt  for  many  long  years — es- 
pecially in  sorrowful  times.  Then  the 
good  man  looks  toward  the  Bible  with 
something  of  the  .feeling  he  has  toward 
heaven.  Somehow  it  has  a  faculty  for 
drawing  hearts  to  itself— like  that  some- 
times possessed  by  a  most  lovely  and 
amiable  living  person  whose  voice  is  sweet- 
ness itself,  whose  eyes  are  like  the  dove's, 
and  whose  tender,  pure,  generous,  winsome 
soul  shines  out  of  winsome  form  and  feat- 
ure as  the  thousand  lights  of  the  evening 


The  Word  of  God.  153 

worship  stream  through  the  painted  win- 
dows of  a  cathedral. 

My  young  friends,  I  want  to  have  this 
sacred  and  glorious  Book  dear  to  you.  It 
ought  to  be.  You  have  no  better  friend. 
It  has  been  the  friend  of  your  fathers  and 
mothers,  never  so  far  back.  It  has  been 
the  friend  of  your  country  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  without  it  you  would  never  have 
had  a  country  worth  having.  When  your 
forefathers  came  across  the  Atlantic  to 
build  new  homes  in  what  was  then  but 
wild  woods  they  felt  that  the  most  precious 
thing  they  brought  with  them  was  a  book 
— this  Book.  They  came  because  of  it — 
came  that  they  might  obey  it  as  they  un- 
derstood it,  and  make  a  new  nation  in 
which  the  Bible  should  be  more  than  king 
and  Elizabeth  less  than  queen.  Some  held 
it  bound  in  satin  and  gold,  some  in  dress 
as  coarse  and  cheap  as  the  printer  and 
binder  could  well  give  it,  but  to  all  it  was 
the  Book  of  books.  They  taught  it  to 
their  children  more  carefully  than  they  did 


154  SUNDAY  AFTEKNOONS. 

any  thing  else.  They  meant  that  those 
who  came  after  them  should  love  and  live 
by  the  Bible  even  as  they  themselves  did. 
It  would  have  pained  them  much  to  think 
the  time  would  ever  come  when  the  dear 
country  in  the  making  of  which  they  suf- 
fered so  much  would  think  little  of  what 
was  so  precious  to  them.  I  hope  that 
time  never  will  come.  Good  men  mean, 
if  possible,  to  prevent  its  coming.  This 
is,  partly,  why  we  have  Sunday-schools. 
This  is  why  catechisms  and  hymns  and 
Bible  verses  are  taught  you.  This  is  why 
so  many  little  books  and  papers  are  printed 
for  you  by  many  Christian  publishers,  and 
why  some  ministers  get  together  the  par- 
ish children  by  themselves  and  preach  to 
them,  as  I  am  now  doing  to  you.  It  is  to 
bring  those  who  in  a  few  years  will  be 
the  men  and  women  of  the  land  to  love  and 
live  by  the  Bible.  And  if  we  succeed  it  will 
be  a  happy  thing  for  the  land  which  our 
fathers  so  loved  and  prayed  for,  and,  some 
of  them,  died  for ;  for  the  Bible  is  like  a 


The  Word  of  God.  155 

certain  man  whom  they  called  a  landscape- 
gardener.  He  made  it  his  business  to  take 
a  rude  spot  of  country,  sometimes  a  few 
acres  and  sometimes  thousands  of  acres, 
and  so  change  it  as  to  make  it  most  de- 
lightful. He  cut  away  at  one  point,  he 
planted  at  another ;  he  carried  away  stones, 
he  covered  great  rocks  with  green  creep- 
ers, he  drained  swamps  and  made  barren 
places  rich,  he  made  lakes  and  streams  and 
fountains,  he  opened  stretches  of  fine  pros- 
pects, he  laid  out  drives  and  walks  that 
wound  in  and  out  to  pleasant  points  of 
view  and  cosy  nooks  and  grand  outlooks. 
So  the  country  became  at  last  a  picture. 
It  was  a  wilderness ;  now  it  is  a  garden, 
and  people  come  great  distances  to  see  it. 
Pleasure-seekers  wander  about  it  in  gay 
groups,  the  sickly  are  wheeled  carefully 
through  its  pleasant  shades  and  sunshines, 
painters  paint  it,  poets  sing  it,  all  eyes 
feast  on  its  beauties.  All  are  refreshed,  all 
are  delighted,  all  praise  it  and  the  man 
whose  taste  and  skill  made  it  what  it  is. 


156  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

"  Who  could  have  thought  it !  What  a 
wonderful  change  from  the  poor,  common, 
forbidding  spot  this  was  once  to  what  it 
is  now !  One  who  could  make  so  much 
out  of  so  little — roses  out  of  weeds,  fount- 
ains out  of  sands,  and  a  delightful  garden 
out  of  a  tiresome  spot — is  a  great  genius, 
and  deserves  to  be  famous."  And  famous 
he  becomes.  He  is  sent  for  from  near 
and  far.  Other  waste  places  wish  to  be 
built  up  after  the  same  beautiful  manner. 
The  demand  for  him  is  pressing.  Appli- 
cations for  his  services  stream  in  day  and 
night.  He  can  set  his  own  prices.  His 
fortune  is  made. 

See  what  the  Bible  is.  See  what  it  will 
do  for  our  place  and  country  and  world  if 
we  succeed  in  getting  the  children  to  treat 
it  as  it  ought  to  be  treated — if  we  get 
them  to  honor  if  and  submit  themselves 
to  it  as  that  spot  of  rough  land  I  have 
just  spoken  of  was  submitted  to  the  land- 
scape-gardener. It  will  be  quite  a  differ- 
ent parish,  quite  a  different  country,  quite 


The  Word  of  God.  157 

a  different  world.  It  will  be  as  if  the 
wand  of  a  mighty  magician  had  been 
stretched  over  it.  There  will  be  fountains 
in  the  wilderness  and  streams  in  the  desert. 
Unsightly  things  will  disappear.  Their 
places  will  be  filled  with  all  that  is  rich 
and  fair — with  truth  and  good  will,  and 
education  and  industry,  and  temperance 
and  honesty,  and  good  order  and  godliness, 
and  all  the  virtues.  Want  will  be  cured 
as  by  famous  medicine.  Hurts  by  sin  and 
sorrow  will  be  tenderly  bound  up  by  num- 
berless good  Samaritans  on  numberless 
roads  to  Jericho.  In  short,  the  change 
will  be  wondrously  great  in  homes,  schools, 
parishes,  society,  governments. 

I  do  not  know  how  many  fine  landscapes 
you  have  seen,  but  this  I  know,  that  you 
never  yet  saw  any  half  as  fair  as  the  Bible 
can  make  .out  of  any  place,  however 
dreary,  that  is  once  fairly  put  into  its 
hands.  What  a  name  such  a  great  artist 
should  have!  What  a  loud  call  there 
should  be  for  him !  As  people  send  for 


158  SUNDAY  AFTEENOONS. 

that  famous  landscape-gardener  from  every 
quarter,  and  will  do  almost  any  thing  to 
secure  his  help,  so  should  we  be  most  anx- 
ious to  have  that  greater  landscape-gar- 
dener, the  Bible,  set  fairly  to  work  on  all 
this  wicked  and  sorrowful  world.  Noth- 
ing else  will  so  freshen  and  brighten  it. 
Nothing  else  will  do  it  any  lasting  good. 
Its  chapters  and  verses  are  what  the  lamps 
are  to  the  dark  city  streets,  what  the  stars 
are  to  the  lone,  dark  roads  of  the  coun- 
try. Men  get  lost  and  perish  without 
them. 

Such  a  book  as  this — so  true,  so  in- 
structive, so  pure,  so  useful,  so  mighty  for 
good,  so  divine,  indeed,  the  only  divine 
book  in  all  the  world — you  ought  to  make 
much  of.  Read  it  much.  Try  to  under- 
stand it.  Hang  up  hundreds  of  its  verses 
in  rich  frames  in  your  memories.  Be- 
lieve all  it  tells  you,  do  all  it  bids 
you,  get  others  to  do  the  same.  Then 
you  will  grow  up  to  be  such  men  and 
women  as  Grod  loves,  and  the  world 


The  Word  of  God.  159 

needs,    and  heaven  will  be  sure  to  get  at 
last. 

Heaven  !  I  see  its  gates  open — its  gates 
of  pearl.  I  see  many  going  in,  some  of 
you  among  them.  Every  one  of  them 
presses  a  Book  to  his  bosom.  "Ho,  far 
away  traveler,  what  is  it  thou  dost  clasp 
so  tightly  and  fondly,  even  though  thine 
eyes  are  just  filling  with  the  strange  glo- 
ries of  the  city  whose  builder  is  God  ? " 
No  answer.  He  is  too  full  of  the  wonders 
he  sees  and  hears  to  heed  my  voice  though 
it  sweep  toward  and  by  him  like  the  prayer 
of  the  publican  or  of  an  apostle.  But 
God  heeds,  and  a  softly  flying  thought 
comes  to  me  from  him,  saying,  That  book 
is  the  Bible.  It  has  cheered  him  and 
guided  him;  it  has  been  light  and  food 
and  shelter  and  rest  and  sword  to  him. 
To  it  he  owes  what  he  is,  and  where  he  is. 
He  has  carried  that  book  on  his  heart  all 
through  the  rough  journey,  and,  now  that 
he  has  come  to  the  end,  no  wonder  that 
his  fingers,  which  just  begin  to  glow  in 


160  SUNDAY  AFTERNOONS. 

the  golden  light   of  heaven,  close  on  it 
more  fondly  than  ever.     No  wonder  ! 

"  May  this  blest  volume  ever  lie 
Close  to  my  heart  and  near  my  eye, 
Till  life's  last  hour  my  soul  engage, 
And  be  my  chosen  heritage." 


THE   END. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last 
date  stamped  below 


2m-9,'46(A394)470 


Illllllllllll 

A    001  145832     o 


BV 
4571 

B94s 


